Thirty Pieces of Silver
by SMKLegacy
Summary: Sequel to Operation Esther. An assassination plot in Poland leaves the future of the country in the hands of Lee, Amanda, and some old and new friends.
1. Then Satan entered into Judas called Isc...

DISCLAIMER: If you recognize people or organizations from the television series, they belong to Shoot the Moon Productions and Warner Brothers. I've borrowed them with love and deep appreciation for the many years of enjoyment I've received from them and am making absolutely no money from this enterprise. If you recognize them from history, no infringement is intended on them; they merely serve to provide the story with an authentic setting. If you don't recognize them from either of those two sources, they're products of my very odd imagination and I claim full responsibility for their imaginary actions.  
  
ARCHIVE: Send me a private message on the PAX TV SMK Forum – TheRev.  
  
STYLE CAUTION: My favorite authors are Tom Clancy, James Clavell, Clive Cussler, Colleen McCullough, and Harry Turtledove, all of whom write complex plots that weave in and out and sometimes hang over into their next book(s). My apologies ahead of time to anyone who needs a map to read any of these terrific writers, as I seem to have developed a similar style through osmosis. To anyone who isn't a fan of theirs for this reason, proceed at your own risk. To anyone who likes the style of this story but hasn't read one or more of the above authors, I highly recommend them.  
  
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I actually was in Poland on a Holocaust Education trip with a group from Boston University during the early part of March, 1989. During our time in Warsaw we stayed at the same hotel as the Solidarity delegation to the Round Table Talks. Lech Walesa really did make a production of shaking hands with our entire tour group on two different occasions, although within the month he went on to make extraordinarily anti-Semitic remarks, so during one of our follow-up meetings, we ceremonially burned the "souvenir" pictures we had taken with him. However, nothing so exciting as this story happened to any of us, or I'd probably be in a very different line of work than the one a crisis of faith in the gas chambers at Majdanek left me open to pursue...  
  
Prologue * Warsaw, Poland * March 9, 1989 * 8:45 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Sunday morning in Boston lingered at the edges of distant memory for Sandra Reese that Thursday morning as she stood outside the Hotel Europejski with her single travel bag. She waited in the raw late-winter wind for the rest of her tour group to come out from breakfast so they could start the next part of their journey. After a day on three different airplanes belonging to two different airlines, three days visiting concentration camps and villages long since bereft of their ancient Jewish populations, and a dozen three-quarter frozen meals "heated" in the only Kosher oven remaining in Warsaw, Sandra could think of nothing except the warm climes, the lively culture, and the spicy Mediterranean foods of Israel that waited at the other end of the day.  
  
A long Zil limousine pulled up; for the fourth morning in a row, Lech Walesa and several other Solidarity leaders pumped her hand for the cameras as they made their way to the car for the ride to the historic Round Table Talks. Yesterday's negotiations were either very good or very bad for Solidarity, Sandra thought as she watched the limo move off in the direction of the neo-gothic Palace of Culture in the distance. They were so loud in their drunkenness last night.  
  
"Excuse me, miss, but I think you dropped this," a boy in his mid-teens whispered in her ear, interrupting her reverie. He pressed a small book into her hand. "Page 12," he added in a heavily accented hiss, dropping her hand and strolling away toward Old Warsaw without a backward glance.  
  
Completely unnerved, Sandra pulled the book up into her line of vision. It was the official tourist guide to Auschwitz/Birkenau, with text in 5 languages celebrating the martyrdom of a relative handful of Communist partisans at the complex – without once mentioning the 2.5 million or more Jews who died there at the hands of the Nazis. Page 12, she noticed, seemed perfectly normal.  
  
The instincts honed from years watching her father at his work told her to throw it away. However much glastnost and perestroika had changed the political landscape of East-West relations, the KGB and their understudies in the East Bloc countries could still make quite a bit of trouble for an American caught with contraband items or sensitive material – and if her father's work didn't convince her, the two weeks she had once spent in "protective custody" in Moscow should have. The budding professor of political science in her, however, demanded that she keep the book to be examined at much greater length when she arrived back at school on Monday night. With a laugh at her own doubts, she tucked the booklet into her purse and mumbled a mild curse at her companions, who were now five minutes late for assembly. The bus was ten minutes late, but the Americans had learned first-hand that on Polish time, 10 minutes late was really 20 minutes early. The bus driver probably had to go ask someone for the keys anyway, she chuckled – it was another rapidly assimilated truism that he with the keys has the power in Poland.  
  
*****  
  
"I delivered it just like you told me to, Mister," the teenager said to the anonymous man who had offered him 200 Zlotys to do the job. They met at a café three blocks from the hotel.  
  
"Good," the man said, carefully counting out the money. "There's another 25 for good measure. Go to your supervisor and tell him you found the money behind a box in the storeroom. He'll let you keep it."  
  
"Edvard? He'll ask for his share."  
  
"Nice try. Trust me, he'll let you keep it. You never saw me or the girl, right." The harsh brown eyes bore into the teen's, infusing the wisdom of agreeing.  
  
"Right."  
  
"Good." The man turned abruptly and limped away, leaving a richer but bewildered messenger behind to wonder what exactly he had never done that required such secrecy.  
  
Chapter 1 * Lublin, Poland * March 11, 1989 * 2:50 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
"Father Jaruslav, you should need no more evidence than what you were told by the cardinal himself," a short, well-muscled blond man said in the thick Ukrainian-accented Polish that told everyone where he had grown up within the patchwork country. "The Catholic Church is defying the voice of the Pope himself and crawling back into bed with the Communist Party." The speaker stood at the window of a small office in a building that backed onto the grounds of Majdanek, a Nazi death camp that had not been beautified for visitors in the way of Auschwitz/Birkenau. The view was depressing at the best of times, he thought as he waited for a reply; at night, backlit by the klieg lights in the main compound, the vast field of decrepit barracks was a fleet of surrealistic arks trying vainly to escape the Flood.  
  
"Of course, you are right, Gregor. I have just prayed for so long that it would never come to this to prove our point. Somehow, 'Thou shalt not kill' doesn't seem to sit very well with the idea of killing to achieve religious freedom." Jaruslav Milowanowicz was a tall, emaciated man in his late twenties; he paced habitually and wore his despair on his sleeve for all to see.  
  
Gregor Borodin snorted. "Most wars are fought in the name of religion, one way or another. Just think of this as a limited war if that conscience of yours needs soothing."  
  
"You have a point, my friend. Do we know yet if the timing I suggested has been approved?"  
  
"Unfortunately, no," Borodin replied with a shrug. "Those above us are taking their own sweet time arranging affairs around this operation."  
  
Jaruslav grimaced. "I still think that it would be a mistake not," he wagged a finger at his companion, "to do it on Good Friday."  
  
"I agree," Gregor nodded, hiding the smile that wanted to play on his pockmarked face, and thinking to himself, Judas Iscariot.  
  
Maplewood Drive, Arlington, Virginia * March 10, 1989 * 8:55 p.m. EST (GMT- 5)  
  
Lee Stetson called to his wife from their study. "Amanda, honey, can you come in here for a few minutes?"  
  
Amanda laughed at her mother's expression as she excused herself from the conversation they were having, tossing the damp dish towel down on the center island as she made her way toward her husband's persistent voice. It was unusual for him to pay much attention to the secured-line phone and fax machine on their weekends off-duty, so she knew that this must be important.  
  
"The flash traffic desk got a message coded for me from the CIA station chief in Warsaw," explained the dashing secret agent whose heart she had captured. "I thought you ought to hear it too." With that, Lee opened the speakerphone connection and dialed the duty officer at the Agency.  
  
"Do you have anyone in Poland?" Amanda stood behind him and massaged his shoulders.  
  
"I did. Piotyr was killed in late '83... just after we met, in fact. I haven't heard a peep from his network since the day I escaped to Berlin."  
  
The tri-tone whistle that indicated an encrypted line sounded, and a voice on the other end said, "Flash traffic desk. Chris Kringle speaking."  
  
"Santa, it's Lee Stetson again."  
  
Amanda put her hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh as Kringle replied, "Oh, I so wish I could exact revenge on my parents for that. I presume you're calling about the Warsaw message, Scarecrow."  
  
"That's the one."  
  
"I have it in hard copy and it's encoded. How do you want it?"  
  
Lee traded looks with his wife and partner before he answered. "Can you fax it to me, Chris? My partner is faster at the decoding thing than most people in your department."  
  
"Sure thing. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Stetson – even if it is by telephone."  
  
"Nice to meet you too, Mr. Kringle."  
  
"Thank you for not laughing out loud. I'm sure you wanted to. And please, call me Chris." There was a smile in the tone, albeit a resigned one. "It's dialing right now."  
  
Amanda did laugh a little this time. "Amanda, and you're right. I think I can understand why you might want to get your parents back for naming you what they did."  
  
"I don't know, I think it's kind of cute," Lee said in his best I'm trying not to double over in hysterics voice.  
  
"Then you try getting the Post Office and Social Security to take you seriously. And never try to live in an apartment on 34th Street," Chris added dryly.  
  
Lee looked blankly at Amanda, who grinned at her husband's lack of holiday knowledge as she replied, "I can see why that might be a problem. We're getting the first page, Chris."  
  
"Is it clean enough to read?"  
  
"It's crystal clear."  
  
"I don't get 34th Street," Lee interjected, standing up to join his wife at the fax machine.  
  
"I'll explain it later, honey. Chris, the second page looks good too."  
  
"Okay, that's it, then, Amanda. Anything else, Lee?"  
  
"Somebody explain 34th Stree – "  
  
"Good night," Chris said, leaving Amanda to satisfy her partner's curiosity by severing the telephone connection.  
  
Lee swiped the thermal facsimile paper away from his wife and held it up out of her reach. "34th Street," he begged.  
  
Amanda rolled her eyes and swatted her husband's chest playfully. "It's an old Christmas movie called The Miracle on 34th Street. It's all about a Macy's Santa Claus whose says his real name is Kris Kringle and there's a court case and a little girl who desperately wants her mother to find love and to buy the house that – oh, we'll rent the movie and have Christmas in July or something."  
  
"Another 'happily ever after' holiday movie," he teased, setting the paper back into her outstretched hands. "I'd settle for a Christmas Eve without Eastern Bloc agents trying to gun us down."  
  
Amanda laughed and sat down on the couch that had once graced Lee's apartments. "Hand me the decoder key book, please."  
  
It took Amanda exactly four minutes and 32 seconds to decipher the contents of the message from the Warsaw station chief, but once she had it deciphered, it still made no sense to her. She handed Lee her notes with a perplexed shrug and sat back to wait for him to break the underlying code.  
  
Lee read the message twice before he remembered the right cipher, then a third and a fourth to be sure he had it right. He sighed before he handed it back to Amanda. "Try it yourself. Remember your key words."  
  
Amanda looked at it again, studied it for a long moment. She read it out loud. "Still nervous. Information optimistic: account opening Zamosc exceeds insurance bonding – ebullient! Stock interest under independent evaluation. Trade assistance tomorrow Bielawa, Friday Starachowicz. Nathan." Then it clicked. "3-1 word encoding. INFO COMES BU STUDENT STEFAN."  
  
Lee beamed at her. "You got it. The question is, what does it mean?"  
  
"Let's start with, 'Who's Stefan?'"  
  
He shrugged. "I have no idea. Maybe the courier's name is Stefan. Or he could be part of Piotyr's old network, I suppose. As for 'BU student', I haven't the foggiest."  
  
"Can it wait? I think there's a little girl in the living room who wants to finish her game of Chutes and Ladders before bedtime." Marlena Marley had been staying with the Stetson-King family since she, her mother, and Jamie King were rescued from Middle Eastern terrorists at the end of January.  
  
Sheepishly, Lee grinned down at his wife. "Uh... I think I kind of told her she could stay up as late as she wants tonight, since it's her last night with us..." Marlena's mother Joanna was finally being released from the hospital tomorrow, and the family was to go to New Mexico to be with other family while the older woman continued her recuperation.  
  
Amanda clucked at him. "Then you are responsible for getting her out of bed and into good humor tomorrow before her mother gets here." She pushed herself off the couch and strolled out of the office, making sure to hide her own wide smile as her husband gaped fish-mouthed behind her. Tomorrow morning would be very entertaining.  
  
The Christian Quarter, Jerusalem, Israel * March 11, 1989 * 3:00 p.m. (GMT+2)  
  
Outside a souvenir shop near the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, two American women appeared to be people watching. One, startled by something she saw, poked the other in the shoulder while she stared across the narrow street. "Sandra, di- d- did you realize that those two guys have been following us since we came through the Arab Quarter?"  
  
Sandra Reese turned her friend away from the men. "Yes, I did. There's nothing we can do about them except let them do what they will – you know what Rabbi Galinowicz said. Now, come on, Christina, these places aren't open all day and we can't come tomorrow."  
  
"But why are they following us?" Christina Milano persisted.  
  
"Maybe they think we're attractive," Sandra replied with an exasperated sigh. "Just keep going and make sure you don't wander off. We'll be fine."  
  
Dubiously, Christina looked behind her again before she felt herself being dragged away from the shop toward the church. "Okay, okay," she muttered, giving in uneasily.  
  
She would not have given in at all had she been able to read her friend's mind. Since long before the Arab Quarter, Sandra thought. They've been there since we arrived at the hotel Thursday night. She didn't want to go any further with that thought; the possibilities were too many and too scary to contemplate, and she knew them entirely too well.  
  
Maplewood Drive * Arlington, Virginia * 11:00 a.m. (GMT-5)  
  
"Marlena, you have to be in a good mood," Lee cajoled the cranky three-year old. "Aunt Amanda made me promise that you would be happy today if I let you stay up." He sat on the bed she had been sleeping on in Dotty's room during her stay, wishing that the family had been able to have the fun of the night before without the 1:30 a.m. bedtime for all concerned.  
  
Through narrowed purple eyes, the girl studied him before she spoke. "You get in trouble 'f I'm bad?" The phrase if I am came out "fime" as she lay sprawled out on top of the covers, still in her Kermit the Frog pajamas.  
  
Sorrowful hazel eyes conveyed the seriousness of his answer. "Yes, I think I will."  
  
"Big trouble?" she pressed.  
  
"Big trouble," he affirmed, taking the tiny hands in his own large ones and kissing them with fatherly affection.  
  
"What do I get 'f I'm good?" A twinkle appeared in her eyes.  
  
Lee laughed, relieved. "A hug and a visit from the tickle monster?" he asked hopefully.  
  
"And a piggyback ride to Aunt Amanda's room," she bargained. "And downstairs."  
  
He was getting off lightly. "Deal. Want your hug first?"  
  
Marlena moved with the quickness only a small child can have into his arms, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. "I love you, Uncle Lee."  
  
"I love you, too, Munchkin." He squeezed fiercely, not quite believing that another child had found its way into his heart in the same way Jamie and Philip had. Perhaps Amanda was right – the more love you give away, the more love you have to give away.  
  
Marlena's going-away party was already in high gear when Billy and Jeannie Melrose arrived with a gift for Marlena from Francine Desmond, who had the weekend watch command and thus was stuck at the Agency coping with a crisis in Central Asia. Marlena squealed when the torn wrapping paper revealed a Barbie - who was promptly christened Miss Francine in honor of her donor. She immediately asked for an Uncle Ian doll. "Miss Francine is so lonely because he is in Cal'forn'a," Marlena enunciated carefully, causing much laughter among the adults. Francine would be both thrilled and annoyed with the girl's perception of her new and deepening relationship with Lieutenant Colonel Ian Marlowe, USMC.  
  
At some point in the afternoon, the subject turned to international affairs, specifically recent events in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.  
  
"So, Joanna, I know that in your spare time, you've worked on the full dossiers for most of the Soviet leadership. What do you make of all this?" Billy asked, genuinely curious to see what the lead profiler for the Special Protective Services Agency would know that he and his staff didn't.  
  
"Well," she started, shifting in the wing chair, "I find it odd that the conservatives Gorbachev threw out of power last fall went so quietly. From everything I've read about Comrade Ligachev, he's hardly one to have gone from #2 in the party power structure one day to a silent nobody the next."  
  
"But Jo, it's the Soviet Union. I may not know much about the subject, but I do know that their system is intolerant of opposition," Dr. Andy Forest said from the floor beside her, protecting her in an odd twist on their usual relationship. America's most important biochemist rested his head on her arm lovingly. "Andrei Sakharov is proof positive of that," he added, making a connection to something with which he was far more familiar.  
  
"True," Jo replied with a smile. "But this is a 'kinder, gentler' Soviet Union than in the days of Stalin and Beria, or even of Khrushchev. Ligachev could easily have gotten something to Pravda that might have been published – even as some kind of editorial that explained the necessity of booting the lot of them. It's been done before."  
  
Billy pondered her statement for a second. "Are you suggesting that he was silenced more permanently?"  
  
Joanna shook her head vehemently. "Not by Gorbachev, no. On the other hand, Gorbachev has some powerful supporters within the KGB..."  
  
"Oh, come on, JoJo. They stopped executing Politburo members 30 years ago," Lee declared, his finger pointing with staccato emphasis at her. "Maybe the guy just decided to retire to the Black Sea to go fishing or something."  
  
Amanda shook her head at her husband. "Or maybe he's biding his time waiting for Mr. Gorbachev to make a mistake. Sometimes that's far more effective than speaking out right away."  
  
"And it would allow him to marshal his forces, so to speak. Ligachev wasn't the only one who lost his job that day," Billy reminded them all. "Several of the top ranking members of the military and of the Defense Council also got the boot. Who knows where they are or what they're planning."  
  
Near the Kremlin * Moscow, USSR * March 12, 1989 * 1:10 a.m. (GMT+3)  
  
"I don't think this plan of yours is all that wise, Feodor Petrovich," a portly gray-haired man in the bemedaled uniform of a Marshall of the Soviet Union said to his host as six men sat around a handsome dining table in the elaborate flat. A half-dozen empty vodka bottles lay scattered across the table, their contents punctuating the conversation in loud belches and high- pitched laughter at the slightest provocation, as now.  
  
"Would you have another one, Igor Maksimovich?" Feodor Petrovich Kaminsky shot back, his authority in the group bringing abrupt silence. "Mikhail Sergeivich wants to 'modernize' the Motherland, but what he is really doing is throwing out 70 years of hard work without so much as a nod to the men who kept us strong."  
  
A wizened little man at the foot of the table cackled with grim glee. "By that, of course, you mean us and the men who came before. I like the... Russianness... of your plan, Feodor Petrovich, but I wonder if it is not a bit too complex. And too reliant upon good timing, perhaps."  
  
Others echoed the sentiments before Kaminsky hushed them with a raised palm. "Comrades, I appreciate your concerns, and I admit that there are more elements of risk than I would like. I would point out, for all of you, that we do have assets in Poland other than the ones involved directly in this plan, so there is limited danger to our abilities there. The girl we think might be the courier – if there is one – is being followed in Jerusalem as we speak and we will have teams waiting for her when she returns to America. It may be nothing, or it may be quite a lot."  
  
The wizened man grunted. "We need to know more about this child. It would have been so easy six months ago when we were all employed rather than pensioned off."  
  
"I, too, wish we could do this from a position of power," Kaminsky acknowledged. "However, since we have been shut out except for a few deeply hidden assets, there is little that I can do otherwise to gather information. If we are to bring Comrade Ligachev and the rest of our faction back into power, then we must take some risks with the assets we have – or they go to waste." The silence of acquiescence followed for a moment. "Bah!" he spat. "Even the KGB is liberalizing."  
  
Igor Maksimovich shook his head glumly. "I heard that the last protester they picked up in Red Square had three decent meals and a soft mattress to sleep on before they shot her."  
  
The seven men laughed as only Soviet apparatchniks can laugh at such grim humor.  
  
St. Maria's Roman Catholic Church, Warsaw, Poland * 10:45 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
The Roman Catholic priest stood tall and proud in his form-fitting cassock and alb, greeting his parishioners with a pleasant smile and words of encouragement and comfort. The smile hid his inner turmoil; the Cardinal had told him in no uncertain terms that St. Maria's would no longer host the underground university where the Solidarity movement and several other anti-Communist groups came together to glean anything and everything their members could out of lectures, classes, and discussions. The Church, far from being a leading voice for freedom in Poland with the power of the Polish Papacy behind it, was now toeing a line that ran much closer to the Communist Party than to Solidarity.  
  
"Father Milos," the man in front of him now said, "your homily was distinctly... how should I put this?... Inflammatory this morning." A row of gleaming Party awards decorated his suit coat over his heart.  
  
"Comrade Danielowicz, I trust that this is true every Sunday," the priest returned, reflecting on the irony of a senior Communist Party official attending Mass regularly and openly. Only in Poland.  
  
Not sure how to respond, the man gave the priest a desultory handshake and sulked away. The next man, however, greeted the priest enthusiastically.  
  
"And the Lord's peace to you, as well, friend Stefan," Father Milos returned. "You found the homily helpful, I presume?"  
  
Harsh brown eyes softened in pleasure as the man pulled the priest into a bear hug. "We have passed the information to the American your friends identified. It is in God's hands now, no?" he whispered.  
  
"Yes, it is. Let us hope that she is as observant at home as she was at Auschwitz."  
  
The man called Stefan nodded again, but this time his eyes were dull and sad. "I could not risk more than a warning message to my American friends, either. We will just have to pray that these small things are enough to get their attention, or Poland may become the 16th Soviet Republic before May Day."  
  
After that disturbing prediction, Father Milos kept a grimace off his face with great effort and turned to the next churchgoers in line as though nothing of any import had been said.  
  
Jericho, Israel * 1:20 p.m. (GMT+2)  
  
Christina Milano could not shake the feeling that she was being watched. Ever since she noticed the two men following her and Sandra the previous afternoon, the eerie sense of eyes scrutinizing her every move made her want to hide in a closet in her hotel room instead of going out with the group for the Saturday evening entertainment or on their Sunday tour of Qumran, Jericho, and the Dead Sea area. Sandra had persisted, of course, and thus Christina sat beside her friend on an ancient stone wall in Jericho, listening with less than half an ear to the archaeologist from the Israeli Antiquities Commission. Her attention focused instead on the dark- haired, handsome European across the street, the one who looked so similar to one of the men from the Christian Quarter...  
  
"Chris! Earth to Chris!" Sandra hissed urgently in her ear, stirring her from her petrified state.  
  
"What?" she asked irritably.  
  
"We're getting back on the bus. Are you coming, or would you rather walk back to Jerusalem?"  
  
With a heavy sigh, Christina hefted herself off the wall. "Does that guy look familiar to you?" she asked her friend, gesturing with her elbow to the lurker who smoked a cigarette as he leaned against a streetlight.  
  
Sandra turned to study the man. "He's gorgeous!" she exclaimed, making swooning gestures with grand brazenness. "Hey, Rabbi! Give me a minute, can you?"  
  
Aaron Galinowicz smiled back at her from his place beside the archaeologist and waved her across the street; 27 years as a college chaplain had taught him many things that seminary never would have or could have. And Miss Sandra Reese, gentile though she be, he thought, had chutzpah when it came to approaching men.  
  
Christina rolled her eyes and stomped away, her opinion clear in the set of her shoulders.  
  
Sandra shook her head with a grin. Steeling herself with false bravado against the icy churning in the pit of her stomach, she approached the dark- haired man. "You know, if you're attracted to one of us, it's okay to come out and say it," she said by way of greeting as she struck an inviting pose beside the light pole.  
  
The man squinted at her as he blew smoke through his nostrils. "What makes you think I'm the least bit interested in you or your friend?" he asked in excellent, German-accented English.  
  
"You've been following us," she replied in equally excellent, Berlin- accented German.  
  
"Sie sprechen Deutsch," he responded in some surprise.  
  
"Aber natürlich," she shrugged. "Wie heißen Sie?" Naturally. What's your name?  
  
Caught in her questioning gaze, the man took a long drag on his cigarette and an even longer time to exhale, this time through his mouth as though trying to create rings of hazy smoke to impress her. He smiled, showing tobacco stained teeth. "I'm sorry to have bothered you," he apologized, once again in English. "You're a little younger than I thought."  
  
She glared at him coldly, mastering the fear that still gnawed at her insides. "Das ist nicht meine Sorge." That's not my problem. With that, she turned on her heel and marched off at double time to catch up with the rest of the group.  
  
The German continued to lean against the pole long after the bus had pulled away, knowing that although he had been spotted and effectively taken out of the field, others would continue their vigil, hoping for a break that would help them discover just who Sandra Reese really was and which American agency she really worked for.  
  
KGB Headquarters, Moscow, USSR * March 13, 1989 * 9:30 a.m. (GMT+2)  
  
"You are very brave to come here, Comrade Secretary," noted the man in whose office Feodor Petrovich Kaminsky sat.  
  
"Were Comrade Stalin still in power, I would not be alive to tempt fate at all, and were Comrade Khrushchev still in power, I would think it far more temptation to fate than I do under the current leadership." Kaminsky shrugged as he sat in a straight-backed wooden chair, looking as though he rather than his host belonged in the small, dingy, poorly lit room. "You have news for me, Georg Alexeivich?"  
  
Nodding, the heavyset KGB agent pulled a nondescript folder from his top desk drawer and passed it across the desk to the former Second Secretary for Defense wordlessly.  
  
Kaminsky took it and leafed through the thick pile of paper inside, looking for the specific coding on top of a page that would tell him to pull it out to read. It took him two tries to locate the two pieces of paper that G.A. Tolstoy wanted him to see; with some resentment at the necessity, Kaminsky pulled out his Western-style reading glasses and slid them over his nose and ears before he could finally begin to read the report. "Bozhe moi," he whispered, fully aware of the irony of that statement in this building.  
  
"Yes, interesting, isn't it?" the other man replied. "However, I doubt that the imperialist, capitalist God would be so kind as to arrange this for us, so she must be at least a courier – or perhaps even an agent in her own right by now."  
  
"You are positive about this identification?"  
  
"Absolutely. We cross-checked the surveillance tapes and photos from the American sector in Berlin as soon as someone recognized the girl's name from the incident in 1986."  
  
Kaminsky stared through his host for several minutes in silence, not noticing that Tolstoy lit a cigarette, smoked it down to a short stub, and lit another from the embers while the senior man thought. "God or no God, this is too good to pass up. Lieutenant General Alexander Reese's daughter serving as a courier for an American intelligence operation. Like father like daughter..."  
  
"How can we take advantage of it? You know the General Secretary will never approve an operation against her."  
  
With a derisive snort, Feodor Petrovich tossed the two news-laden pages onto the desk before him. "Comrade Gorbachev has not approved anything we're doing, including the surveillance that led to this discovery."  
  
Properly chastised, the active KGB agent hung his head and took note of his instructions. When Kaminsky stood and walked out ten minutes later, Georg Alexeivich waited a beat, then echoed his superior's decidedly un-Party Line: "Bozhe moi." My God. 


	2. Chief priests and scribes

DISCLAIMER: If you recognize people or organizations from the television series, they belong to Shoot the Moon Productions and Warner Brothers. I've borrowed them with love and deep appreciation for the many years of enjoyment I've received from them and am making absolutely no money from this enterprise. If you recognize them from history, no infringement is intended on them; they merely serve to provide the story with an authentic setting. If you don't recognize them from either of those two sources, they're products of my very odd imagination and I claim full responsibility for their imaginary actions.  
  
Chapter 2 * The Agency * March 13, 1989 * 2:15 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"Lee, sweetheart, you are making me nervous."  
  
"I thought you got nervous when I paced."  
  
Amanda shook her head at her husband as he sat quietly in his desk chair looking at the stacks of papers and piles of files. "I'm used to that. You NOT pacing and you being very quiet make me nervous. What are you thinking, as if I don't know?"  
  
Lee sprang to his feet and leapt gracefully onto his wife's neat, uncluttered desk to plant a kiss on her nose. "I have to go to Poland." He stood up and began to walk his familiar route around the office.  
  
"No. You could be walking into a trap."  
  
"Amanda, this is my network we're talking about, and it's come back to life all of a sudden. I have to go find out what's going on." He ran his hand through his hair repeatedly, his anxiety now apparent.  
  
"I know, I know. But we have nothing to go on except one cryptic message. At least wait until something more happens."  
  
"What if nothing more does?"  
  
Amanda bit back the first answer that came to mind: then you get to stay home where I can get your back and I don't have to sleep alone, and instead replied, "Let's cross that bridge next week, okay? Let it rest."  
  
Lee stopped pacing long enough to look at his partner, best friend, and wife. Her concern showed clearly in her eyes, and he knew from experience that her instincts were often right on target. "Okay – until something else comes through or until next week."  
  
Amanda relaxed a little. "Thank you."  
  
Boston, Massachusetts * 7:30 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"Hi. How was your trip?" Sandra Reese's roommate Linda asked from her desk without turning as the weary traveler fell through the door to their Bay State Road apartment.  
  
"Exhausting," Sandra replied honestly. "Mentally and physically." The single bag on which she had survived the entire week landed in the small kitchen with a solid thump.  
  
Linda turned with a lopsided grin. "You expected otherwise?"  
  
Sandra smiled though a weak grimace. "Yes, actually, I thought I would come back feeling as though I had been in, oh, say, Bermuda all week."  
  
"It was fabulous," Linda said with a big laugh. "But I dare say that your trip will give you far more to talk about in life than a week on a Caribbean beach."  
  
"You do have a point. Don't go anywhere." Sandra picked up her bag for the last part of the journey, around the corner into the bedroom the girls shared. She came out a moment later with a well-wrapped object in her hands. "Mission accomplished," she said, handing the package to her roommate.  
  
"What mission?" Linda asked, accepting the gift hesitantly.  
  
"Open it."  
  
Linda ripped through the many layers of plain wrapping, revealing in 10 seconds what had taken a shopkeeper in Jerusalem twenty minutes to wrap according to Sandra's exacting specifications. "A Seder plate! How did you know I needed one?"  
  
Sandra smiled. "You mentioned it several months ago when you were doing your semester schedule. Passover starts mid-week this year, and you said you wanted to host a Seder."  
  
"That's very cool. I'll give you a hug later to thank you – oh, you dropped a booklet or something when you came out of the bedroom. It's behind you on the floor."  
  
Sandra turned around and bent over to retrieve the item. When she noticed what it was, she stopped in mid-stretch with enough of a moan to make Linda ask if she'd pulled a muscle. "No, just feeling the effects of 15 hours on airplanes today – or is it tomorrow?" Then she picked up the brochure that the nameless teen had given her in Warsaw, stood up with a groan of real pain, and went into the bedroom.  
  
"Page 12, the boy said," she muttered to herself as she flopped onto her bed by the window, wondering if the glossy pages were burning her hands for real or if it were her mind playing tricks on her. As she noted days before, page 12 looked perfectly normal. Playing a hunch, she got up again and rifled through her carry-on until she found the copy of that same booklet that she had picked up at Auschwitz. Kneeling beside her bed with the firm mattress as her desk, Sandra compared page 12 of the Warsaw copy with page 12 of the Oswiecim copy. It took four words into the Polish language block to notice the first difference and after that everything on the page was different. What set her teeth on edge was the fact that the whole thing was a note to her, written through four languages she happened to speak and read fluently and one that she could read passably and make herself understood in if she had to.  
  
She reread the note three times, each time more worried than the next. How did anyone know that I speak Russian? Did they assume that my Russian was good enough to make my Polish comprehension passable, or did they know that somehow, too? Shaking, she looked at the clock, calculated the time difference, and resolved to stay awake until she could call her father in Berlin at a decent hour of the morning. Somehow, she knew he needed to know about this, even if he couldn't do anything to help her.  
  
Maplewood Drive * Arlington, Virginia * 8:30 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"Mom, you remember that project I told you I need to do for the honor society?" Philip asked, sliding down onto the couch beside his mother.  
  
"Sure, Sweetheart." Amanda stopped herself from ruffling her son's hair as her arm started to rise of its own accord to do just that. She settled for draping one arm around his shoulders and tossing her magazine on to the coffee table with the other.  
  
"Well, I figured out what I want to do." His mother looked at him expectantly instead of asking him for the information, so after a moment, he plunged on. "I want to go help after school at the shelter for homeless women and kids. They uh... they need some volunteers to help with their pre-school program."  
  
Stifling the laugh that welled up within, Amanda smiled at her older son. "That's a great idea, Philip. What made you want to do that?" As if she didn't know the answer to that question.  
  
She didn't – at least not all of it. "Well," he started self-consciously, "I really did like having Marlena around after I got used to her – she was fun and smart and happy most of the time. So that's some of it. But I also got to thinking about what might have happened to Marlena if her mom had been..." he swallowed hard before he continued, "...killed. I mean, she'd be an orphan and all... Anyway, I thought that maybe some of the kids at the shelter could use a friend after what they've been through the same way Marlena needed us."  
  
Philip had never openly hinted that the recent revelation of his mother's and stepfather's actual line of work bothered him; he had focused on the action and adventure in his quests for information and understanding. That worried Amanda enough that she had asked him about it a few times, but Lee finally convinced her to stop pestering her child, assuring her that when he was ready to talk about it, Philip would let them know. "That's terrific, Philip. I bet a lot of those kids are worried about their parents the way Marlena was, too." It felt to Amanda as though she was always getting information from her teenagers obliquely these days.  
  
"Prob'ly. So is it okay with you?" He smiled impishly, taking her back to the days of windows broken by baseballs and tinsel fights at Christmas time.  
  
"Sure."  
  
"Thanks, Mom!" he exclaimed, surprising her with a hug and a kiss on the cheek as he stood. From the steps a few seconds later, she heard his deepening voice once more. "I'm really proud of what you and Lee do. Just don't get hurt doing it, please."  
  
She turned to answer him but he was gone, his heavy tread marking his journey to his room upstairs. It was just as well; she really had no answer to give him that could assuage his realistic, adult fears.  
  
American Sector Military Headquarters, Berlin * March 14, 1989 * 6:35 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Alexander Reese was not by nature an early riser; given a choice, he would have slept until noon and worked until 4 in the morning. Since his planned four-year stint in the Army had become 29 and counting, he lived instead by the Army dictum that the day started when the sun came up and ended at the whim of the person at the top of the chain. The sun was well up this morning, so he slumped at the table in his small apartment within the Headquarters complex, drinking coffee strong enough to turn shoe leather into filet mignon. When the phone rang above his head, he jumped and so did his coffee cup, splashing hot, bitter, dark brown liquid on his gray Army sweat suit. He cursed, slammed the mug down, and reached for the offending instrument.  
  
"Reese," he growled into the receiver, expecting a subordinate to inform him that once again some desperate East German had been shot going over the Wall. With his free hand, the general reached for the napkin holder across the table from him.  
  
"Daddy, it's Sandra."  
  
General Reese pulled his arm back, dropping a stack of napkins onto his lap as he checked his watch. Then he answered his only daughter. "Alex Sandra Reese, it's after midnight in Boston. What are you still doing up?"  
  
"Ummm... something happened in Warsaw."  
  
"Did you get caught in another state police black market raid?"  
  
She laughed on the other end of the line. "No, Daddy. I got a job while I was there."  
  
The bull of a man checked his language before he responded. "What, are you a carrier pigeon now?"  
  
"Yes, as a matter of fact." Before he could react, she went on. "I have a script to deliver. Have you ever heard of International Federal Film?"  
  
His face twisted in revulsion as the father in him noticed and objected to the fact that his daughter handled the unsecured line as though she had a lifetime of experience making field reports. The professional operative and supervisor in him sorted through the many agencies he had dealt with in his lengthy tenure with Military Intelligence. "That's a new one on me, honey," he finally confessed. "But it sounds like a well-respected outfit."  
  
"I'll tell you all about it after I meet with one of their producer/directors, then. A man named Lee Stetson comes highly recommended to handle this particular type of project."  
  
He could hear the exhaustion in his little girl's voice; it touched him that she had stayed up late to call him at a bearable hour, if not exactly a decent one. "You be careful, Sandra. You know how those film people can be."  
  
"Yeah, Daddy, I do."  
  
As he ate his toast and cereal a little while later, Lieutenant General Alexander Reese wondered how his children knew so much about the intelligence world just from living at its periphery all their lives. Then again, if you're a 12-year-old boy or a 9-year-old girl when your mother is killed before your eyes by operatives from the other side who made a mistake, perhaps it comes as some relief to be on intimate terms with the dirty underworld in which your father lives. Kevin had been recruited by the NSA when he started his junior year in college; was another group looking to co-opt Alex Sandra?  
  
The Agency * March 14, 1989 * 9:23 a.m. E.S.T. (GMT-5)  
  
Billy Melrose listened attentively to Scarecrow as the younger agent paced the office, laying out the results of his inquiries into the origins of Friday evening's flash traffic message from Warsaw. Billy had been rather surprised that Tuesday morning to find Lee and Amanda still in the country; the section chief had assumed they would be on their way to Warsaw before he could come back from his Monday off to say no. As he listened to Lee, he realized why they were still in D.C. rather than in Poland.  
  
"Not a single bite, Billy. No recognition, no return signals, no red flags, nothing. Nada, zip, zero, zilch, naught, nichevo. There isn't anyone over there." Lee ran his hand through his hair and flopped down in the chair beside his patiently quiet wife.  
  
"So what's up with the message?" Billy asked, leaning forward in his chair and steepling his hands in thought.  
  
Amanda cleared her throat and glanced at Lee before she answered. "Sir, I think the network has been compromised. I think the Polish security agency sent the message to see what we would do, and they're waiting for us to come exploring in hopes of killing the rest of the network off."  
  
"Come on, Billy, you know that's not likely!"  
  
Actually, Billy thought Amanda's analysis made a lot of sense, especially in the current situation. However, only Lee knew the members of his network personally, and only he could ultimately determine whatever further follow-up was required. "Give it a week. If it's a true message, then someone ought to be contacting you. Amanda, did you come up with any possibilities for 'B.U. student'?"  
  
"Yes, Sir. Baker University, Barry University, Bastyr University, Baylor University, Belmont University, Benedictine University, Biola University, Boston University, Bradley University, Brandeis University, and Brenau University, staying within the United States and assuming that the 'U' stands for 'university'."  
  
Billy whistled slowly. "I think you know what you need to do next…"  
  
Lee growled as Amanda answered. "We need to find out if any of these schools had students in Poland recently, and if we can check quietly, see if the Polish Embassy will give us a list of visa recipients." She sighed; she would be on the phone for most of the day while Lee found ways to be out "doing something."  
  
Billy noticed Amanda's reaction and made clear his preference. "Right. Amanda, you go to the Embassy and work your charm at the visa desk. Lee, you start calling the schools. Let's get this cleared up and get on with the real work around here."  
  
The partners stood and turned as one toward the door, which flew open inches from Lee's nose. Francine Desmond was already speaking as he backed up into his wife.  
  
"Lee, there's a woman on the phone asking for you urgently. She says she's got a script from some Polish writer who insisted you would produce it for him – "  
  
Oblivious to the pain he had caused Amanda when he stepped on her toe, Lee shot an "I told you so" look at his boss and tore past the beautiful blonde out of the room, leaving Francine standing bewildered as she finished her sentence, " – and get him out of the country." She looked at Billy, confusion clouding her blue eyes. "Do I even want to know?"  
  
"No, you don't," Amanda laughed as she rubbed her foot. "But I think you made his day."  
  
1 Lublin, Poland * 3:24 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
2 "Your man, he is committed?" The voice on the other end of the international telephone connection crackled with expectant energy.  
  
Gregor Borodin sighed. He had been through this far too many times – and Father Milowanowicz was not his man, anyway. The KGB – the very same security force now interrogating to him! – had recruited the priest. Well, a different directorate of the KGB, but it amounted to the same thing in Borodin's mind. "Yes, Comrade Gogol, he's a zealot for the cause. The latest renunciations of Solidarity sponsored academies in churches really set him off against Cardinal Glemp."  
  
"And he knows nothing of our interest in this little action?"  
  
"Of course not," Borodin snorted, insulted at the innuendo.  
  
"See that it stays that way. Ten days, correct?"  
  
"Da, ten days." The connection broke, leaving Borodin standing at the hotel phone desk looking for all the world like his dog had just died. Life might be better, he thought, if that were the case.  
  
3 Bay State Road, Boston, Massachusetts * 9:26 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
Sandra Reese sat on the edge of her twin bed with her legs crossed, drumming her right foot against the dresser and absently smoothing the floral bedspread with her left hand as she waited to be connected with Lee Stetson. The booklet lay open on the bed beside her, and she had outlined her plan in writing before she called so that she could remember exactly what she wanted to say. Her brief conversation with her father had convinced her to play it very safe.  
  
"This is Lee Stetson," a rich, languid voice finally purred in her ear.  
  
I'm going to marry the next man who can cause that effect through the telephone, Sandra thought before she collected herself enough to speak after the shiver of excitement the voice sent coursing though her. "Uh, hi, Mr. Stetson. My name is Sandra Reese. I was asked to deliver something to you from a friend in Warsaw."  
  
"Nice to meet you, Sandra. What do you have?"  
  
"A script written by someone named Stefan. I was told to deliver it in person." She willed her foot to stop moving as the banging became annoying even to her.  
  
"That's easy enough. Can you bring it by our office?"  
  
Sandra laughed. "Mr. Stetson, I'm calling a number in Washington, D.C., and I live in Boston. I think you'd better come get it."  
  
"Are you a student?" Expectation colored the tone.  
  
"Yeah, at Boston University. Look, I just got back from Spring Break and I'm low on travel cash, if you know what I mean." So far, so good – sticking with her plan was easier than she had thought.  
  
"I remember what that's like. Okay, can you describe this script to me?"  
  
She shook her head, even though the man on the other end of the phone could not see her. "Sorry, my instructions were to contact you and to deliver it into your hands safely after I've verified that you are who you claim to be. I've told you all I'm allowed to."  
  
A sigh from the man. "You're taking this very seriously. Is there a number I can reach you at when I've made travel arrangements?"  
  
Sandra gave him her phone number and instructed him not to leave a message, but to keep trying until he reached a person. "If my roommate answers and asks who you are, tell her you're my father's adjutant and you're home on leave. That way you can leave a D.C. number and it won't raise her curiosity."  
  
"Okay, I can do that. You should hear from me before five tonight."  
  
"I'll be waiting." She hung up, proud that she had managed to stick to her plan from beginning to end. She stood up, taking her cheat sheet with her to the bathroom. She shredded the page thoroughly and dropped the bits into the toilet; only when the water in the bowl had swirled and emptied twice was she satisfied that no one would get wind of this part of the operation – whatever the operation was.  
  
Outside Lublin, Poland * 4:45 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Gregor Borodin watched as Father Milowanowicz obliterated the center of yet another standard rifle target, this one at 150 meters with a blustery cross wind that by all rights should have caused him to miss every time. This was proof positive that his tremendous showing as a member of the Polish Rifle Team at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow was no fluke, and a substantial boost to the likelihood of success for their joint endeavor. "Unbelievable!" he shouted to the priest when the other man stopped to reload his weapon a moment later.  
  
"It's a useful skill in the winter," Jaruslav shrugged as he slid a new clip into the stock of his semi-automatic rifle. "We never starved." He pointed to the target. "Move it out to 175 and put a face on it."  
  
Borodin relaxed a hair; this was the first time the assassin-in-training had asked to have a body-shaped target put up. The squat blond did as requested; he was surprised to hear the other man's voice berating him as he tacked up the black and white target.  
  
"No, you idiot, I meant put a face on it. The Cardinal's, please."  
  
"I don't have a big enough picture of him to make a target. You'll have to pretend for now." Gregor put three targets on the tree at varying heights, then made his way back to the Yugo parked safely behind a stand of trees so Milowanowicz could fire again.  
  
"Then get a bunch as soon as you can. Go to the Diocesan office in town and ask for his official photograph. Tell them you want to put the pictures up in a school – they'll give you a whole stack." The priest took his time with his aim at the middle target; nine single shots later, a neat circle of five shots in the center of the forehead and one of four in the chest elicited a grim smile of satisfaction from the shooter.  
  
Gregor Borodin shuddered. Perhaps he and his masters had underestimated their Judas, after all.  
  
Gorky Park, Moscow, USSR * 7:30 p.m. (GMT+3)  
  
Georg Alexeivich Tolstoy watched the skaters on the Gorky Park pond with mild disinterest as he sat on an icy bench in the stiff Russian winter wind. The air smelled of impending snow; Tolstoy willed his contact to come quickly so he could go home to his new mistress and the eiderdown quilts they so often threw off in their passion.  
  
"On the other hand, when I think about Natasha, I don't need my coat even here out here, so perhaps I can wait a bit longer…" he murmured to himself as he scanned the paths for the familiar face he awaited.  
  
"Georg Alexeivich, you're slipping," a voice berated into his ear in good, Leningrad-accented Russian. "You forgot to check behind you."  
  
"You're late," Tolstoy replied, ignoring the jibe. "What could be so important that we had to meet tonight instead of at our usual time?"  
  
Laughter, then an answer in twangy, southern American English. "Y'all asked me to check out a few things. I did, and y'all won't like the answers I got."  
  
"Well?" in Tolstoy's thick Russian accented English.  
  
"The Warsaw link has been used in the last week to get information out; apparently, they've enlisted civilian aid because the name y'all gave me as the suspected courier is not known to my contact, nor is she in the databases by that name. Washin'ton has been trying to connect back, unsuccessfully. I'm late 'cause my source called me with late-breaking news that the girl y'all think is the courier made contact with a cover company regarding something she picked up in Warsaw."  
  
Tolstoy sat in contemplative silence for several seconds. "What cover organization?"  
  
"That question is out of bounds, my friend. I will tell you, however, that an agent is going to Boston for a meet."  
  
"Excellent. I will put my people on it in Boston. There will be a bit extra for you in your next deposit for this information."  
  
"Spaseba," the man replied in his polished Russian. He stood and sauntered away, his nylon covered parka rustling as he strode away.  
  
"Capitalist American pigs," Tolstoy muttered. "Money will get you everything." He left Gorky Park with a swagger and a deceptive spring in his step for a man his size, knowing that when he reported to Feodor Petrovich Kaminsky, the older man would be delighted with the progress of the multi-faceted operation.  
  
The Agency * 2: 05 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"So, my darling wife, how would you like a night away in the romantic city of Boston?" Lee asked from his desk when Amanda entered the Q-Bureau.  
  
"If you promise that I won't have to deal with anyone who speaks only Polish, I think it's a grand idea. No one at the embassy has ever heard of glastnost." She sat down behind her desk and let her head fall into her hands. "When?"  
  
Lee got up and went to his wife, began to massage her temples for her. "Tonight."  
  
"Tonight? I can't. We have a conference with Jamie's teachers and Mother – "  
  
"I moved the conference up and I've already talked to your Mother. Of course, I may have given your mother the impression that this was purely personal rather than business…"  
  
Amanda looked up at him, interrupting his ministrations. "Lee, is my mother going to ask me about having a baby again after this?"  
  
"Has she been bugging you, too? Ever since Marlena arrived, she's been trying to convince me that you and I should have children together." He smiled with a gleam in his eye. "Both the boys have asked me about it, too."  
  
An eyebrow went up slightly. "Really?"  
  
"Mmmm hmmmm." He bent down toward her. "And you know what I said?"  
  
"What?"  
  
He kissed her with great deliberation. While she was still breathless he answered her question. "I said that it was nice to know that if you and I decided at some point to add to the family, they were all for it."  
  
She returned the kiss, and while he was still breathless, she said, "Very diplomatic, Mr. Stetson. Just for that, I think I will go to Boston with you tonight."  
  
"Good. I can't stand sleeping alone."  
  
The Parker House Hotel, Boston, Massachusetts * 8:20 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"Fess up, Stetson. You're paying for this out of our personal slush fund, aren't you?" Amanda whispered to her husband as they waited for the elevator to take them to their suite in one of Boston's oldest, most elegant hotels.  
  
"Believe it or not, no. This was the only room available in the city. There's some big convention or conference happening at Harvard this week, so all the hotels are filled." Lee wrapped his arm around Amanda's slim waist, enjoying the time away from the usual grind of life, however brief the escape would be. "Billy's exact words were, 'Enjoy the Jacuzzi'."  
  
She laughed as they stepped into the elevator together, the bellboy behind them with the small carry-on bags that he insisted on bringing up. She leaned close to her husband to reply, "We can arrange that."  
  
Bay State Road, Boston, Massachusetts * 9:00 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"Hi. Did you have a nice flight?" Sandra Reese asked, thrilled and annoyed all at once by that sexy voice. Not fair, she thought. He's way old and married, got to be.  
  
"Yes, thank you, Sandra. Where and when can we meet tomorrow?"  
  
Sandra replied without hesitation. "At Faneuil Hall Marketplace, in front of Durgin Park at 12:15. We can have lunch and talk scripts."  
  
"Since we haven't seen each other in so long, tell me what you'll be wearing and remind me how you look now, because all I can picture is the gawky 13 year old."  
  
Without missing a beat – or so she thought, Sandra replied, " Uncle Lee, I'll be wearing a green and white letter jacket with a purple sweater and jeans. And I'm about 5'2", 105 pounds, with ivory skin, raven black hair and Wedgwood blue eyes – if you can believe my father, who waxes poetic about my newfound resemblance to my mother sometimes."  
  
Lee Stetson laughed. "Okay, Sandra. I will meet you at 12:15 in front of Durgin Park at Faneuil Hall."  
  
"Okay. By the way, I think I've got a fan club. I know I did earlier in the week – I scared one of them off." The ensuing silence on the other end made her nervous, but then Sandra thought that perhaps Mr. Stetson was adapting his plan.  
  
She was right. "Okay, Sandra. Aunt Amanda and I will meet you as planned. Look for the usual bouquet of flowers and… what's your favorite stuffed animal again?"  
  
"I still have a polar bear collection," Sandra replied.  
  
"Okay, a bouquet of flowers and a reasonably large polar bear. I'm sure you'll tell us that 'Florida was just too rainy to tan well,' when we ask."  
  
"'Florida was just too rainy to tan well.' Got it. 12:15 at Durgin Park – see you tomorrow."  
  
Sandra looked at the furry white mounds on end of her bed. Another polar bear for her troubles? Sure, she could always sleep on the floor.  
  
The Parker House Hotel * Boston, Massachusetts * 9:05 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"She's good," Lee said as Amanda hung up the other phone in the suite and came out to join him in the living room.  
  
"Very good. I wish I could place that name, though. It's ringing bells in my head somehow, but for the life of me I can't figure out why."  
  
"It will come to you, Amanda. Now, why don't you come to me and let's follow Billy's orders for the evening." He smiled at his wife and watched her move toward him in a slow, seductive wriggle.  
  
Amanda couldn't keep it up; she convulsed in laughter halfway to him. "Your turn," she hiccupped between giggles.  
  
"I have a better idea." With that, Lee took two big steps toward her and scooped her up in his arms, carrying her off toward the bedroom – and the Jacuzzi – with practiced ease.  
  
Faneuil Hall Marketplace * Boston, Massachusetts * March 15, 1989 * 12:16 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
Lee and Amanda watched the lunchtime crowd in the marketplace with careful casualness, each scanning the passers-by with practiced eyes. Amanda held the large polar bear and in some part of her mind laughed at the fact that she had a panda bear the same size that had been left on her front porch about 5½ years ago by the man standing next to her, who held a large bouquet of mixed roses. Marlena Marley used that panda bear as a reading chair, the thought continued, and wouldn't it be nice to have another child who could use it – STOP IT, Amanda commanded herself. Pay attention.  
  
What would it be like to have a daughter of ours to pamper like this? Lee thought as he scanned the crowd. He got no farther with the thought; he heard a sweet, cultured voice calling "Uncle Lee! Aunt Amanda!" and turned to see someone who met Sandra Reese's description of herself approaching from the City Hall Plaza end of the marketplace.  
  
She came unerringly, holding out her hands as though to greet favorite relatives rather than perfect strangers and the hugs she gave to each agent in turn would have convinced anyone that indeed, Uncle Lee and Aunt Amanda were truly her favorite people.  
  
"So, Sandra, how was your spring break?" Amanda asked as she handed the polar bear over to her "niece."  
  
"Oh, not bad, other than the fact that Florida was just too rainy to tan well. This is the coolest bear, Aunt Amanda. Another one for the collection. Dad doesn't know what he started."  
  
"No, I'll bet he doesn't," Amanda replied, going with the flow.  
  
"Well, should we eat here, or is there somewhere else you would suggest, Sandra?" Lee asked, impressed anew at the girl's improvisational skills.  
  
"Let's stroll the food court inside and eat in the rotunda. Durgin Park isn't the cheapest restaurant in Boston and I'm sure that the cost of the trip, the bear, and the flowers – which, by the way, are gorgeous – will be enough sticker shock."  
  
Since she was right about that, Lee didn't argue. The trio settled on sandwiches from the Brown Derby Deli and found an empty table on the balcony of the rotunda at the center of the marketplace building. Sandra told them in broad strokes about the events of the last few days, leaving out only her call to her father. "I don't know what's in the book besides the initial message, but I'm reasonably sure that I was followed out of the apartment to the subway. I think I lost them there – that's why I was late – but I can't be certain," she concluded.  
  
Amanda and Lee exchanged looks. If Sandra's message really was from the remnants of Lee's network in Poland, she could be grave peril.  
  
"I'd guess that as soon as we have the book, you'll be out of danger," Lee said to soothe her fears, if not his own.  
  
She didn't buy it. "Don't con me, Uncle Lee. I can make a pretty good guess as to the true nature of your business and I know from first-hand experience that it can be an extremely nasty one at times."  
  
"Reese," Amanda whispered. "I knew I'd heard that name before. How's Berlin?"  
  
Sandra smiled, first at Amanda, then at Lee. "Your wife is a very good agent, Uncle Lee."  
  
Lee looked from one woman to the other, knowing something momentous had just happened but not clear exactly what it was. He went for the easy one first. "She's not my wi – "  
  
"Don't even try it. You two are very happily married and very much in love, too."  
  
"So much for that cover," Amanda shrugged, unable to keep her gentle trademark smile from her face.  
  
"Okay, okay. What's this about Berlin?"  
  
Sandra answered again. "Amanda is referring to the fact that my father is Lieutenant General Alexander Kevin Reese, the head of American Military Intelligence for Eastern Europe."  
  
"Oh." Lee set his sandwich down and sat back against the railing of the balcony. "Oh, this gets complicated. If you are being followed, and if the people following you know who you are…"  
  
"Lee, I think we should take her back to Washington with us. If you are being followed, Sandra, there's no guarantee that handing over the book will end the pursuit."  
  
Sandra nodded but remained silent.  
  
"I don't know, ladies," Lee said after a moment. "It sounds extreme and may tip them off."  
  
"I'd agree with you, Uncle Lee, if I hadn't seen the dude in Jericho. They – whichever part of 'they' we're talking about – aren't playing with the amateur league. Believe me, I know the type from living in Berlin with my dad. It really isn't my decision, since I'm sure that National Security – " the capital letters were obvious in her tone " – is involved. So I'm going to the ladies' room while you two decide where I'll be safest, and when I come back, we'll talk about the book." Grabbing a small cosmetic bag out of the front pouch of her backpack, Sandra patted the polar bear in the empty chair beside her and stood up, stepping around the tables and chairs to wind her way to the restroom.  
  
Amanda smiled at her husband and took his hand across the table when he set down the remnants of his corned beef sandwich. "She's good," she said, trying to draw Lee out.  
  
"Almost too good. Do you suppose this could be a set up?" He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a gentle kiss into her palm.  
  
"I don't think so," she replied, ready to assuage any doubts he might have. "She seems like a strong kid who's scared but hanging in because she has to. Maybe we should talk to the leaders of this trip to see if they know anything."  
  
Lee sighed. "Maybe. You're right. I'm just being paranoid."  
  
Five minutes passed; Amanda checked her watch and decided to find the ladies room herself.  
  
"Why is it that women have to go in pairs?" Lee joked as Amanda kissed his forehead on her way past.  
  
She came running back a moment later holding a jagged piece of the white leather from Sandra's letter jacket, stained red with fresh blood, and had an answer he didn't like at all. "Because someone put up an awfully good fight right outside the bathroom door and Sandra is nowhere to be found." 


	3. Lazarus, come forth!

DISCLAIMER: If you recognize people or organizations from the television series, they belong to Shoot the Moon Productions and Warner Brothers. I've borrowed them with love and deep appreciation for the many years of enjoyment I've received from them and am making absolutely no money from this enterprise. If you recognize them from history, no infringement is intended on them; they merely serve to provide the story with an authentic setting. If you don't recognize them from either of those two sources, they're products of my very odd imagination and I claim full responsibility for their imaginary actions.  
  
Chapter 3 * Somewhere Over Western Russia, USSR * 9:25 p.m. (GMT+3)  
  
"I thought you might like to know, Feodor Petrovich, that our erstwhile guest is once again enjoying our hospitality." Georg Alexeivich Tolstoy had a broad smile as he listened to the telephonic reply from his mentor. "And it appears that she had not yet had a chance to meet the agent my informant told me about, so we should be able to recover the material from her flat without trouble."  
  
"I will not hold my breath for that one, Georg Alexeivich," Kaminsky chided. "You know as well as I do that our Boston agents are, how shall I put this, more egg-headed than level-headed, and I am sure that this child took some elegant, if simple, precautions that might cause angst for our more academically minded Boston set." He sighed, a noise that traveled to his listener as static more than a human sound. "Send her from Boston to Leon Ivanich in Washington. I saw in his file that he was in Moscow the first time our guest stayed with us. Perhaps he will enjoy the chance to renew their acquaintance."  
  
"As you wish. What should we do if this becomes public?"  
  
"Nothing. Why in the world would we be implicated?"  
  
The Rotunda of Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Boston, Massachusetts * 1:35 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
Amanda and Lee had to tell the story about their "niece's" abduction to three different Boston Police officers before one of them picked up on everything the seasoned agents weren't saying and called the senior force federal liaison agent. When Captain Harrison O'Connor arrived on the scene, he talked to his officers before he approached the couple from Washington, D.C.  
  
"Stetson. You have an uncle in the Air Force?" Captain O'Connor asked by way of introduction.  
  
Lee smiled and extended his hand. "I do. I seem to remember sitting across from you at a desk after an adolescent prank went awry, Captain. I think it was at Wright Patterson when I was about 15."  
  
The policeman nodded and shook Lee's hand. "That's about right. Mrs. Stetson, pleasure to meet you, even if the circumstances are lousy."  
  
"Captain O'Connor, thank you. We appreciate your help." She shook his hand, as well.  
  
"You're welcome. Let's find a place where we can talk, shall we?" He escorted Lee and Amanda to a small office off the rotunda, closing the door firmly behind him as the two visitors sat down.  
  
"Ernie is a smart cop who doesn't call on his superiors unless he's got very good reason. Why does he have reason this time?"  
  
Lee and Amanda each showed him their IFF identification and gave him a telephone number to call. Harrison O'Connor had worked with a number of government agencies in his 17 years on the Boston force, but never with one that required him to verify his identity before its representatives would exchange more than bare bones pleasantries. When he returned to Lee and Amanda five minutes later, he was chastened enough to listen with both ears and his brain in high gear as the agents told him about Sandra's abduction.  
  
"And if you can manage it, I would greatly appreciate it if your officers would return her backpack to us," Lee said with gentle strength at the end of their tale.  
  
O'Connor's green eyes flashed understanding as he called over his radio for Ernie to bring the bag in. He hoped that the agents would open the bag before he left them; clearly, however, that was not to be the case. "I'll see what I can do with the BU police to get some coverage on her apartment," he said, and left Lee and Amanda to themselves.  
  
Amanda unzipped the outer pocket of the green bag; a quick glance told her that Lee didn't need to see its contents, as it obviously supplemented the cosmetic bag Sandra had taken with her. The larger main pocket held a couple of notebooks, three textbooks, and several pamphlets about Israel and Poland.  
  
"This could take a while," Lee said when he spread the booklets and leaflets across the low table before them.  
  
"Decoys. She's got decoys in here," Amanda nodded toward the brochures. "Did Sandra tell you anything about the script or where it might be?"  
  
Lee shook his head, frustrated at the circumstances. "No." He stood up and paced, wanting to be out looking for the girl rather than sitting in a room flipping through the pages of travel brochures. As it was, he left that to Amanda.  
  
"Lee, honey, look at this," his wife commanded after several minutes. When he was where he could see over he shoulder, she showed him the only two booklets that matched. "Why would she have two copies of a book about Auschwitz?"  
  
"Maybe one is for an – wait a minute. Are they actually the same book?" Lee pulled a chair over and sat down beside his wife, taking one of the two from her. He opened the book to page one and motioned for her to do the same. Together, they flipped the pages of the book until Lee noticed that Amanda's page 12 was different from his page 12.  
  
"Can you read any of it besides the English?" Amanda handed her book to her husband.  
  
Lee read in silence for a few moments before he closed the book he had been holding and concentrated on Amanda's. He couldn't read the French, but his Russian and Polish were passable and his German excellent. Even missing the middle paragraph, he saw that the booklet contained everything he needed to know.  
  
"Amanda, I'm calling Billy. He and Francine need to be briefed in to help you find Sandra."  
  
She glared at her husband for several seconds, knowing that he had to do what he thought was right but not liking it at all. "You're going back to Poland, aren't you?"  
  
"I have to. Look, let's go to the FBI office here – they've got all the secure equipment we'll need for communications and the tools to help me find the microdot inside the page." He ran his hand through his hair and looked at his wife with a sad smile. "You've got a bad feeling about this, don't you?"  
  
Amanda nodded; she hadn't liked this from the very beginning.  
  
"You think I'm wasting my time until we have something more concrete?" When Amanda nodded again, Lee gave in. "Okay, I'll stay here until we find Sandra, then I'll go raise the dead."  
  
"'Lazar, eedee bon!'"  
  
Lee looked at Amanda with surprise. "Very good."  
  
She shrugged. "It's Russian, but it fits."  
  
And Operation Lazarus was born.  
  
Lublin, Poland * March 16, 1989 * 2:25 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Gregor Borodin stared at the remains of 35 pictures of Josef Cardinal Glemp in disbelief. Jaroslav Milowanowicz had systematically deprived each paper face of eyes, nostrils, and teeth without so much as marring an eyelash, clipping the nose, or kissing a lip with a wasted bullet.  
  
"He is good, comrade," allowed Borodin's contact in the elite accent of a Moscow-born party hack. Borodin knew him only by his code name, Pavel Igorovich Gogol, and would not have been amused at the literary penchant that G.A. Tolstoy had for creating his own covers.  
  
"Deadly," Borodin retorted, eyeing the other man with contempt. "As I have been telling you, once we are back in Warsaw tomorrow, we cannot recall him – there's no way to justify another absence from his duties at the Chancery. Are you absolutely sure that the mission is a go?"  
  
"I will know for certain on Monday. Will that be enough time to put him in position?"  
  
Borodin sighed, wondering if the idiot in front of him had even read the mission brief. "He will be in position whether the mission is a go or not. It is merely a matter of what he takes with him to the service."  
  
"Oh." After a moment, "Gogol"/Tolstoy shrugged. "I will not worry about the details, then."  
  
That would be a first, Borodin thought. He said, "I will expect a call at the Ministry on Monday."  
  
After his visitor left, Gregor Borodin stared at the desecrated portraits of Cardinal Glemp for a long, long time.  
  
The Agency * March 15, 1989 * 9:45 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"Billy, it's confirmed. Our regulars at National saw three unknowns escort a woman matching Sandra Reese's description off a flight arriving from New York about 20 minutes ago." Francine beat her ballpoint pen against the legal tablet in her hand, showing her intense agitation with the situation.  
  
Billy Melrose rubbed his face with a meaty hand and propped his head in his other hand on the desk. "Do we know where they took her?"  
  
Francine shook her head. "We didn't have enough manpower to keep the watch and to follow them. It's spring break for most of the Maryland school districts." Of which she knew Billy was well aware because they had been short-staffed all week, but it didn't hurt to remind him. "And we start from scratch."  
  
"Probably. Any word from Lee about the microdot?"  
  
"The lab techs at the FBI found it about three hours ago; Lee figures he and Amanda will be at the translation all night."  
  
Billy nodded, then continued his interrogatory. "How did Amanda do handling the lid?"  
  
"She must have done an excellent job – there hasn't been word one in the broadcast media and Boston Police reported no calls from print media. I can tell you that she really didn't like telling a blatant lie to Linda, the roommate, or Christine, the best friend."  
  
"Did she say that to you that, or are you guessing?"  
  
"I'm trying to be empathetic, sir."  
  
"You might make a Betazoid yet." The section chief slumped a bit in his chair and blew out thoughtfully between pursed lips. "Okay, next phase. Let's get a headcount of Soviet Embassy personnel. What time is it in Berlin? I don't think I can wait until morning to call General Reese."  
  
Francine turned on her heel and beat a quick exit, not wanting to be in the office for the ear-blistering the kidnapped girl's father was likely to give her section chief.  
  
"And thank you for your support," Melrose muttered as he picked up the phone.  
  
American Sector Military Headquarters, Berlin * March 16, 1989 * 3:50 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
"Reese!" the general barked into the telephone, grabbing it from the table beside his bed before it finished the first ring.  
  
"General Reese, this is William Melrose from – "  
  
"I know where you're from, Mr. Melrose. Mrs. Stetson called me hours ago with the news. Where the hell is my daughter?"  
  
The ominous tone of the man's voice apparently didn't faze William Melrose. "We never located her in Boston, but we did observe her being escorted onto a commercial flight from Boston to New York about three hours ago. We lost them in New York but our regular spotters saw them getting off a shuttle flight at National less than half an hour ago. We have no ID on any of the men with her."  
  
The general merely grunted, waiting for the rest of the news that just couldn't be good. It wasn't. So the general did what any powerful man would do: he made a decision and took action. "I will see you in Washington tomorrow for dinner, Mr. Melrose. By then, you had better have some very specific information about my daughter's whereabouts and who exactly has her in captivity. You can expect a liaison officer from the Joint Intelligence Command on your doorstep before noon." Alexander Reese slammed the receiver down. He would be in his office in three hours; things would move quickly then.  
  
FBI Field Office * Boston, Massachusetts * March 15, 1989 * 11:05 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
Amanda King Stetson unfolded herself from the hard molded plastic chair in the small, windowless office with a wince of pain at the complaining muscles in her lower back. "Lee, do we have to stay at this all night, or can we come at it fresh in the morning?"  
  
A lifetime ago, his answer would have been absolute: Stay. Now, however, he knew the advantage of rest and a fresh perspective – and of his partner's advice. Unspoken in her question was her adamant resolve to take him back to the hotel. He sighed and looked up into his wife's beautiful face. "Let's finish this paragraph and call it a night."  
  
"Thank you," she replied, leaning over to kiss his roughly shadowed cheek. "I'll get us some decaf."  
  
Lee reached for her hand without looking up from the pile of paper in front of him. "Thank you, Amanda."  
  
"For what?"  
  
He looked up at her with his best brilliant smile. "For teaching me the value of sleep."  
  
She smiled back at him with a tired twinkle in her deep brown eyes. "Who said anything about sleep, Stetson?"  
  
He was still chuckling when Amanda returned with the coffee.  
  
1 American Sector Military Headquarters, Berlin * March 16, 1989 * 7:30 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Alexander Reese banged the receiver into place on the black multi-line phone and bellowed for his aide.  
  
Marine Corps First Lieutenant James Johnston appeared before the general had completed his bawl. "Sir?" he said, standing at attention more stiffly than any time in his Annapolis tenure.  
  
"Get Lt. Col. Ian Marlowe at Monterrey – the Language School. He's the jarhead who teaches Mandarin and Cantonese if anybody is dumb enough to ask which Lt. Col. Ian Marlowe you're looking for. Tell him he needs to be on a priority flight to DC within the hour for an assignment of an undetermined duration. His orders will come from the Pentagon before he's off the phone with you." He reached for his telephone and dismissed his aide with a gesture.  
  
"Yes, sir!" Johnston shouted, and turned sharply on his heel to leave. He paused before the door and turned with some trepidation. "Um, General Reese, sir, you do realize that it's 11:30 last night in California, right?"  
  
"Yes, I do – I also happen to know that Colonel Marlowe watches Johnny Carson religiously. Get him on the phone."  
  
"Yes, sir!" Johnston turned toward the door again.  
  
"Oh, and James?"  
  
"Sir?" the lieutenant turned back to his commander from the hallway.  
  
"Thanks for the note about the prayer for Sandra. It means a lot."  
  
James cracked a very small smile. "You're most welcome, sir."  
  
The Flight Line Command Post, Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska * 5:10 a.m. CST (GMT-6)  
  
Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Ian Marlowe blew on his deeply bronzed hands and shook his arms to try to get some warmth into his extremities after his fifty yard dash across the taxiway from the F-14 in which he had flown halfway across the country thus far. It wasn't snowing, but it was far colder in Nebraska than it had been in California two hours and two time zones ago.  
  
"Colonel, your call," an airman said, handing him a telephone.  
  
"Marlowe."  
  
"Ian, Alexander Reese. You're in Omaha?"  
  
"Yes, sir, General Reese. We're due to take off again in about 10 minutes. What's the crisis?"  
  
Reese outlined the situation in broad strokes for the Joint Intelligence Command's ace troubleshooter.  
  
"I'm sorry about your daughter, General. Without overstepping my bounds, though…"  
  
"You're wondering if I'm making this personal and taking advantage of my rank," the general finished for him. "Let me assure you, colonel, this is a personal matter of National Security in the same vein as your trip to Moscow three years ago."  
  
Ian nodded, unseen by the man in Berlin. The fear in 1986 had been that the Russians would use Sandra's detainment as a means of influence – or worse, outright blackmail – over the general. While no one was certain this time that it even was the Russians who had her, it was far better to assume they did, they knew, and they were prepared to use her as a weapon. "And where exactly am I going?"  
  
"I'm sure it will be a gas…"  
  
"IFF," Ian smiled, his white teeth catching the light in the command center in such a way that the taxiway crew chief mimed being blinded. Ian's report to the command staff about his experience in Israel had led to many such poor jokes, but heroes are entitled to laugh at death after they've cheated it.  
  
"IFF," the general repeated. "You'll be working with William Melrose."  
  
"I know his team quite well, sir. I'll report by phone to you in Berlin tomorrow."  
  
"I'll see you for dinner at the Ft. Belvoir Officers' Mess," General Reese corrected, and the line went dead.  
  
Ian took the receiver away from his ear and stared at it for several seconds. "Yes, sir," he finally said with a shrug. He had a Tomcat waiting for him.  
  
The Agency * 9:45 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
Mrs. Marston's smile warmed the antechamber by several degrees when she recognized the visitor in the Georgetown Lobby. "Lt. Col. Marlowe, how nice to see you! Does Ms. Desmond know you're coming?"  
  
"I don't think so, Mrs. Marston. I doubt my boss would have called to announce me in particular – although Mr. Melrose should be aware that someone from the Joint Intelligence Command is arriving."  
  
The beautiful older woman checked her protocol bulletin and found the memo from Billy saying exactly that. She continued to smile as she made out the guest pass and announced his arrival to the guard downstairs. "This way, Ms. Desmond will still have her surprise," she said to Ian's questioning eyebrow.  
  
"You're a romantic at heart, aren't you?"  
  
Impossible though it seemed, the smile got brighter. "The Stetsons are to blame for that."  
  
Ian entered the coat closet with a quiet laugh and rode down into the bowels of The Agency. Uniformed guards escorted him into the bullpen, where several acquaintances greeted him as openly as Mrs. Marston had. Billy's door was closed and the blinds were drawn; stepping close to the entrance he could hear the voices of Billy, Lee, Amanda, and Francine, but not exactly what they were saying. He knocked.  
  
"Come!" came the sharp growl of Billy Melrose in a state of agitation.  
  
Ian straightened his face and opened the door. He stepped through in proper Marine fashion, closed the door, snapped to attention, and barked out, "Lieutenant Colonel Ian Marlowe reporting at the order of Lieutenant General Alexander Reese, sir!"  
  
The effect was exactly what he had hoped: Billy sagged with relief; Amanda and Lee, absent in physical form but present via the miracles of modern technology, laughed over the speakerphone; and Francine blushed red in every place her skin was exposed.  
  
Amanda recovered first from parts unknown. "Hi, stranger. Welcome back."  
  
"At ease for heaven's sake," Billy chuckled. "It's a good thing Francine was sitting down or you might have had to catch her when she fainted."  
  
Francine, whose color had just begun to fade, colored again and started to stammer a protest.  
  
"Permission to kiss Miss Desmond, sir?" Ian inquired in a teasing tone of Billy.  
  
"Granted, by all means." Pointedly, Billy covered his eyes and the Stetsons stayed silent on the other end of the open connection.  
  
Ian pulled Francine into his arms and, as always when he kissed her, the rest of the world ceased to exist. All too briefly, they parted, the promise of their relationship firmly restated in the moment. "Okay, you can look now," Ian said to Billy, serene as he slid into the last empty chair in the room. "Or listen, as the case may be," he continued with a nod toward the phone.  
  
"Have you been briefed?" Billy asked.  
  
"Not in depth, sir. I know that General Reese's daughter is in trouble again and that it's a matter of National Security, again."  
  
The Agency operatives brought him up to speed on the investigation, including the embarrassing loss of contact with Sandra's captors when they left National Airport the night before. Since that time, they had learned nothing new.  
  
"General Reese isn't going to like that," Ian understated when the update was complete.  
  
"Your uncle isn't very happy about it either." Francine mimed a cigarette holder moving back and forth in the air to indicate Dr. Smyth.  
  
"Uncle Austin is a pussycat compared to General Reese. Where do we start?"  
  
Francine looked at Billy. "There's a reception at the Soviet Embassy tonight. SecState is set to attend and the State Department asked for some extra handlers. Ian and I could go and check on the whereabouts of the usual suspects."  
  
"Aren't you still persona non grata at the Soviet Embassy, Francine? I seem to recall an incident at New Year's Eve a few years ago…" Amanda let the sentence hang with tantalizing deliberateness.  
  
Desmond squirmed. "The Naval Attaché and I finally came to an understanding," she replied in high dander. "And he said he wants to see me again. Ian will be a surprise."  
  
Lee tried unsuccessfully to hide the laughter in his voice. "A rather sour one, I suspect."  
  
Billy shook his head. "Okay, folks, let's get back to the task at hand. Go ahead to the embassy party, Francine. Lee, you and Amanda bring that other project back here as quickly as you can – we need to be able to move on it as soon as possible if there's any connection or anything else happens. We should have something from the FBI counter-intelligence unit by this afternoon."  
  
"And General Reese expects us at the Ft. Belvoir Officer's Mess for dinner." Ian nodded to Billy but included all of the Agency folks by intonation.  
  
Billy thought for a moment. "Amanda, get yourselves down here in time for dinner. Francine, you're excused – I know you'll need the time to make a grand entrance at the Embassy."  
  
Desmond didn't know whether to be relieved or offended at first, but then she realized that Billy had given her an order to make an entrance – and that was the kind of order she would NEVER disobey. "Right. And in the mean time, I'll get Ian up to speed on the surveillance."  
  
"Go." The meeting ended and all involved scattered to their various tasks, hoping for a break quickly.  
  
Somewhere in the Washington, D.C. area * 3:40 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"I've already told you. I don't work for any American intelligence agency. I'm just a college student who was asked to do a favor by a friend." Sandra Reese glared at her captors with hatred. "Would you like me to say it again in Russian? Ya stoodent v' ooniversitet. Maya droog' srposeel menya – "  
  
"Enough! We know you speak much better Russian than that. We also know that you speak and read Polish, though perhaps not as well. No one in Poland would ask an American to smuggle something out unless it was to an American intelligence organ."  
  
"Pavel Constantinovich, calm yourself. Miss Reese is not someone to be bullied," the other man in the room corrected. "She needs to be soothed and led to see that cooperation is her only rational choice. Isn't that right, my dear?"  
  
Sandra's Wedgwood blue eyes flashed fire toward both men, but she remained silent.  
  
"You are taking up bourgeois habits, Leon Ivanich. Perhaps we should ask the political officer for a ruling." Pavel Constantinovich shook his thick finger at the other Russian, an older, innocuous looking man with better teeth than the average Soviet citizen.  
  
Leon Ivanich just smiled, waving away the accusation. "Leave us. I will get the information."  
  
The other man deflated a bit as he turned on his heel and left the frugally furnished room where the American girl sat tied to a straight metal chair. Leon Ivanich watched him go with a disdainful frown before he resumed his study of the young woman.  
  
"You are a thorn in my side, young lady," he said in flawless, highbrow British English. "First you spend two weeks being thoroughly unhelpful despite less-than-pleasant surroundings at Lefortovo, and now you're here still being thoroughly unhelpful on something that is far more important than a little black market ring in Moscow. I hope you're well compensated by your government."  
  
Sandra just stared through him as she struggled to keep her focus on the here and now. Her occasional nightmares of Lefortovo left her sweat-soaked and shaking in the night; if she had a flashback now, the dapper KGB man in front of her might get what he wanted.  
  
In the three years since their previous meeting, Leon Ivanich had added mind reading to his considerable repertoire of sadistic methods. "I see you are thinking about Lefortovo. I would wager to say that perhaps Room 315 holds particularly unpleasant memories for you, what with the electro- shock therapy, sleep deprivation, and hallucinogens. Are you still having acid trip flashbacks?"  
  
Praying for the strength to stand firm, Sandra gave nothing away, not even with a twitch of her eyebrow.  
  
"They have trained you well since 1986. I would be impressed if you were one of ours." He took a pack of Marlboros out of his suit coat pocket, extracted a cigarette, lit it with great ceremony; he smoked two down to stubs and was well into a third before he spoke again, his words cutting visibly through the hazy air. "You gave yourself away while you were at Auschwitz, you know. Only an America would be brazen enough to point out that certain Polish and Russian signs around the museum have different text than the English, French, and German signs for the same displays. Only an American intelligence agent would have the skills to notice. Q.E.D., you are an American intelligence agent. We just need to figure out which agency sends you a W-2 each January."  
  
Sandra remained silent, focused beyond herself even as she heard the words indicting her in the eyes of the Soviet Union. She wasn't naïve enough to think that American soil would protect her from whatever Leon Ivanich might mete out, but she had to hope that her father and the Stetsons would somehow get her out of this mess. And in that calm core of her mind that held her together, she added that as long as Ian Marlowe was still a bachelor, she wouldn't mind having him be her rescuer again.  
  
The cold voice left icy tendrils across her mind. "There are fates worth than death, you know."  
  
Officers' Mess, Ft. Belvoir, Virginia * 5:30 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"Is General Reese here yet, Sergeant?"  
  
"No sir, Colonel. We have a table reserved for him at 1745 – for two officers and a civilian."  
  
Ian sighed. "That's right, but there will be three civilians, so please adjust the setting accordingly. I'll wait for them in the public lobby."  
  
"As you wish, sir. Shall I tell General Reese when he arrives?"  
  
"Thank you, Sergeant. That's fine."  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
Ian, dressed now in his standard green dress uniform, sat in the lobby of the officers' mess reading the latest issue of Stars and Stripes while he waited for Billy, Amanda, and Lee. Someone at the State Department was worried about human rights in China, all of a sudden; Ian suppressed a laugh and thought about the many Chinese scientists working at Los Alamos who would now be peasant farmers or exiled prisoners had they not escaped to Taiwan and later America in the 60's and 70's. He owed his command – relative command, he reminded himself – of Cantonese and Mandarin to these men and women. Amazingly enough, there was no mention of Sandra's disappearance, although he was waiting for that shoe to drop any time. Better that it do so in Stars and Stripes than in The Washington Post or The New York Times.  
  
One of his former students entered the lobby and called out to him just as he got to the Op Ed page. They chatted in awkward Cantonese for a moment before Ian saw the three federal agents arrive and bid the woman good-bye. "Good evening, everyone," he said, reaching out to shake hands around. He felt decidedly empty handed as Lee escorted Amanda into the dining room.  
  
Alexander Reese already occupied the head chair at their table, having come into the mess from the Flag BOQs upstairs. He looked distinctly unhappy, as all concerned expected. Despite the obvious gloom, he was cordial enough as introductions were made and drink orders taken. The quintet made small talk until after their server deposited their drinks, then the general launched into Billy.  
  
"How on earth did you let those goons get by your people?"  
  
Billy ran an index finger around the collar of his shirt as he answered the disconcertingly calm father and military leader. "It's school vacation for a lot of our regular agents, and there's no funding for backups. We were short-staffed."  
  
"Short-staffed!" The explosion of sound came out accompanied by a fist on the table that set the plates and silverware rattling. "Damned politicians. What are they thinking?"  
  
"Perestroika?" Amanda offered after a moment of silence.  
  
The general looked up at her and his expression softened. "Probably. Which just goes to show you that there's a sucker born every minute. What do you think our chances are of finding my daughter, Melrose?"  
  
Billy relaxed just a little. "I'm as confident as past experience allows me to be, which is to say that we will need a great deal of luck in addition to skill to get Sandra back. We have discovered that at least one of the men who was seen with her here at Dulles is a Russian national, so that increases the odds that the KGB has her. For all we know, she could be inside the Embassy."  
  
General Reese shook his head. "Highly unlikely. That would tie the Soviets too conclusively to her abduction. No, they've got her somewhere close by, possibly in a safe house of some kind. And you can bet that this is a race for her life, because she's smart enough to know it's the KGB. They cannot afford to let her live."  
  
Amanda and Francine had come to that same conclusion over the phone late the previous night; Billy and Lee had assumed that was the case from the beginning. Ian, who had suffered for 10 days in Lefortovo with Sandra to keep exactly that from happening once before, knew with grim certainty that even if they did manage to rescue Sandra, she would have permanent scars, both physical and mental, from this latest round of incarceration.  
  
"Why did this happen?" the Army officer asked as the mess steward came over to take their orders.  
  
Amanda, last around the table, gave her order for Chicken cordon bleu, then turned to Reese with her characteristic gentle smile. "Well, sir, Sandra apparently got herself noticed by some operatives in an American intelligence network simply by being herself. They needed to get information back to the States and she was their candidate."  
  
"And was this information vital to American interests?"  
  
Billy nodded at Amanda to continue. "We think so."  
  
Lee took over. "We're in the process of evaluating the initial data, but so far it looks as though a highly placed network we had thought was dead is viable and at least minimally active."  
  
"When will you know the true value?"  
  
Lee looked away from his wife as he replied. "As soon as I'm there on the ground – which will hopefully be the beginning of next week."  
  
"What does it depend on?" the general asked.  
  
"On getting Sandra back," Ian declared before Lee could answer. The two men had made a pact: Sandra Reese would be found, alive, or they would die trying. 


	4. Only believe, and she shall be made well

DISCLAIMER: If you recognize people or organizations from the television series, they belong to Shoot the Moon Productions and Warner Brothers. I've borrowed them with love and deep appreciation for the many years of enjoyment I've received from them and am making absolutely no money from this enterprise. If you recognize them from history, no infringement is intended on them; they merely serve to provide the story with an authentic setting. If you don't recognize them from either of those two sources, they're products of my very odd imagination and I claim full responsibility for their imaginary actions.  
  
Chapter 4 * Washington, D.C. * 7:45 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
The first time Ian Marlowe had stood on Francine Desmond's doorstep, he had been as nervous as a new recruit facing a Drill Instructor for the first time. Now, almost two months into what he hoped would be a permanent, "till death do us part" relationship, the nerves held a different quality. What if she doesn't really want to see me any more and she's just being nice? he thought as he waited for her to answer.  
  
Inside, Francine checked her makeup one last time, resisted the urge to put on lipstick, and opened the door. "Hello, lover," she said in her best bedroom voice.  
  
That answers that question, Ian chided himself as Francine hauled him inside, shut the door to close the world out, and pulled him into a kiss that rocked him from his high and tight haircut to his neatly trimmed toenails.  
  
She let him go after a long minute, smiling into his dark eyes with an inner glow that made her the most beautiful woman in the world. "I'll be back. Now I can put on my lipstick."  
  
He returned her smile, appreciating the gesture she made by not putting any on to greet him. "Hurry back."  
  
Francine's dress left nothing and everything in the mind's eye at the same time. Cobalt blue velvet with rhinestone accents formed the fitted bodice; the same velvet in the skirt barely skimmed her hips as it fell straight to the floor. A shear scarf wrap, held in place with a rhinestone brooch on her left shoulder, completed the outfit.  
  
Ian stood and daydreamed about taking her out of that dress – it looked a bit complicated with crisscross straps in the back and that brooch which must have been anchored to the dress somehow – but he knew that the day was far in the future when he might actually have the chance to fulfill his fantasy. As hard as it had been to make the decision, both he and Francine had determined that their relationship had to be more about the interpersonal depths of friendship and love than about sex at this stage. He was often surprised at how infrequently he regretted that decision, although tonight, he admitted to himself, just might be one of those rare times. Then he remembered that General Reese expected him at breakfast tomorrow morning and the regrets vanished completely.  
  
Francine came out, still luminous from the kiss and fully prepared for the embassy reception. She stopped a few feet from him and studied him for several seconds. "If I'm hyperventilating, it's because you take my breath away in that uniform."  
  
"What, this old thing? I found it hanging in my closet and it happened to fit." He knew he looked good in his evening dress uniform; by the look on Francine's face, he might have been the single most incredible sight in the world.  
  
"I always have liked men in uniform. You, however, put everyone else I've ever seen to shame." She stepped closer to him, fingered the gold braid on his dark blue jacket cuffs, traced the brim of his regulation white hat where it sat above his ears with teasing fingertips – to hell with the fact that I've got my cover on inside – stepped out of her rhinestone encrusted sling back heels to run a stocking-clad foot up the red and gold stripes on his trousers…  
  
"Uh, honey, we do have an assignment to attend to tonight," Ian managed to squeak out as Francine ran her hands under his scarlet cummerbund.  
  
"Oh, I know. I'm just making sure that every woman who swoons at your feet knows beyond a shadow of any doubt that you are my man." She stepped even closer, leaned in; with her lips millimeters from his ear, she whispered the words he had been longing to hear from her since the day they met. "I love you, Ian."  
  
Unprepared as he was, Ian realized that the finger she ran down his cheek was wet with a tear – his tear - and more were following. His voice, when he found it, came out hoarse with emotion. "Francine, I love you. More than I ever thought possible. More than when I walked in. Oh, God, help me! I love you, Francine."  
  
Near the Kremlin * Moscow, USSR * March 17, 1989 * 5:00 a.m. (GMT+3)  
  
Unlike most of his contemporaries, Feodor Petrovich Kaminsky enjoyed a healthy lifestyle. Early each morning for fifty years, even now as he approached his eightieth birthday, he ran between three and four miles. Whenever possible, he invited a colleague or subordinate to join him, as much for the fun of watching their bravado disintegrate in the second mile as to accomplish any real business. This morning, however, his companion kept easy pace with him as they made good time down the bank of the Moscow River across from Red Square and the Kremlin in the pale light of a late winter dawn.  
  
"You surprise me, Georg Alexeivich. You don't look like a man in shape to run." The words came out on the steam of Kaminsky's breath.  
  
Tolstoy smiled as the pair rounded a slight curve and turned down a side street that led back toward the Kamenii Bridge. "You taught us to be masters of disguise. So I am like a Japanese Sumo wrestler – I look fat, but I am all muscle underneath."  
  
"I am impressed. What can you tell me about our operation?"  
  
"The Polish element progresses nicely – the dupe is every bit as good as Borodin promised, and perhaps better, if you can imagine. Only time will tell when that will actually come to fruition during next week, although the thought now is next Friday during the noon service in Castle Square. Leon Ivanich has been working on our problem child, but as yet with no success." The pair turned sharply onto the pedestrian walkway of the bridge and headed back across the river toward the Kremlin. "What we do next for that is an unknown. We don't think it is safe to try to take her out of the country, but we also are not completely comfortable with security in the United States."  
  
Kaminsky said nothing as the wind, unfettered by buildings over the open river, whipped through the runners. Only when they had turned off the bridge and were running comfortably along the other bank of the polluted waterway did the older man comment. "Deal with it there. If all else fails, she will just be another young woman abducted, raped, and killed in the decadent West."  
  
The Soviet Embassy, Washington, D.C. * March 16, 1989 * 9:05 p.m. EST (GMT- 5)  
  
"Miss Desmond, you are truly a vision to behold," the Naval Attaché of the Soviet mission said as he bowed with great ceremony over Francine's extended hand. His greeting to Ian a moment before had been something just barely above zero degrees Kelvin, as she had predicted.  
  
"Thank you," she replied, and couldn't help herself after his treatment of her date. "This is just a bit bourgeoisie, don't you think?"  
  
The comment had the desired effect as the urbane, self-important man excused himself abruptly and went off to find someone else to greet.  
  
Ian raised an eyebrow in silent amusement; even so, he felt obliged to lean down to the delicate bejeweled ear closest to him and whisper, "That was harsh, don't you think? He was just being polite."  
  
Francine arched her eyebrows in return and murmured, "The guy is a creep. He got fresh with me three years ago at a New Year's Eve party. Lee and Amanda had to pull me off of him before I killed him."  
  
"Oh."  
  
The striking American couple made their way through the many greetings and conversations toward the hors d'oeuvre table. Ian's uniform was distinctive among the formal wear of his fellow party-goers; try though they might, the Soviet Bloc officers could not come close to the inimitable aura of power and authority carried by one in the uniform of a United States Marine. The combined effect of Francine's bedazzling beauty and Ian's masculine form on those gathered was that of royalty on children – breathless anticipation of the moment of meeting.  
  
"They love us," Ian whispered at one point when he had the food in sight. "So much that we're going to starve in the process of greeting our public." The table disappeared as the gathered group of diplomats and functionaries pushed the couple along in its tidal surge.  
  
"You've already had dinner," she chided. "Besides, what's not to love?" Francine returned to his first comment, rolling her eyes. This was not what she had in mind at all. She went from hand to hand with Ian in tow, meeting and greeting the "in" people of the moment and wondering if the fruits of this evening would be solely personal. That would, of course, be fine, given the earlier conversation with Ian – but it would be nice to have a break in this kidnapping case, too.  
  
After forty minutes of wading with the tide of celebrants, Ian and Francine made it to the chafing dishes and fondue pots. "Try the pierogi," Francine advised as Ian looked over the assortment of food. "That's the one thing that has never been bad."  
  
"They are indeed extraordinarily good this evening," a deep, British- accented voice said from behind the couple, startling both as they loaded their small plates.  
  
Ian turned before Francine did, recognizing the voice but needing the visual confirmation of his intuition. "Leon Ivanich, I had no idea you were in Washington."  
  
The Soviet agent smiled and nodded, recognizing Ian from their travails in Moscow. "Lieutenant Colonel Marlowe, I see. That certainly wasn't made clear three years ago. Never mind. Yes, I have been assigned to the embassy here as an interpreter. Not that the Ambassador really needs one, you understand, but just in case."  
  
"Of course. Miss Desmond?" Ian guided Francine around to face the other man. "May I present Miss Francine Desmond, a unit director with International Federal Film. Miss Desmond, this is Leon Ivanich Scholk, a translator on staff here."  
  
"A pleasure, Miss Desmond." Unlike the Naval Attaché, Scholk merely shook her hand. "Your Colonel Marlowe travels around a bit. I last saw him in Moscow under less than auspicious circumstances."  
  
Ian shook his head. "No need to dredge up unpleasant memories."  
  
"No, indeed. Please, enjoy the hospitality." Scholk took his leave; Ian lost sight of him as the tuxedoed man blended into the milling crowd.  
  
"What's wrong, Sweetheart?" Francine asked, seeing the menacing expression on Ian's face.  
  
The endearment distracted him briefly as he smiled a knee-weakening smile solely for Francine's benefit. "Not here. Not now. We need to leave as soon as it's polite to do so."  
  
"Why?"  
  
The shudder that went through the Marine was one of relived terror; the fierce effort to suppress the memory showed on his face. Calmer, he pulled Francine into what could have been mistaken for a passionate embrace and whispered in her ear. "I know who has Sandra."  
  
Flag Bachelor's Officer Quarters, Ft. Belvoir, Virginia * 11:45 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"This is a dumb question, I'm sure, but are you one hundred percent positive that it was Leon Ivanich Scholk at the embassy?" General Reese stood at the window overlooking the parade field, staring into the black night seeking a different answer than the one he knew his guest would give.  
  
"Yes, sir," Ian Marlowe replied. "I doubt I could ever mistake him for anyone else."  
  
Reese nodded without turning. "No, I don't suppose you could." The general and the lieutenant colonel were silent for several minutes before the ranking officer spoke again. "That bastard killed my wife, then he hurt my daughter and brought my son to the brink of suicide before we got her back. Now he has my daughter again. This is it. Third strike."  
  
Ian grimaced, memories of both previous episodes rolling voraciously over him. "He's out, sir."  
  
"Damn straight, Marine. And I don't care what I have to do to make it happen."  
  
Somewhere in the Washington, D.C. Area * March 17, 1989 * 1:20 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"I am forced to admit that even though you are not one of ours, I am impressed, Miss Reese. Thirty-six hours without sleep and yet you still hold your secrets." Leon Ivanich Scholk circled his captive, pacing with his arms behind his back as though on a stroll along the Mall.  
  
Her own father might have had a hard time recognizing Sandra Reese; her blue-black hair lay matted and rank against her scalp and her Wedgwood blue eyes were barely distinguishable from the blue circles around them. Her ivory skin had a yellow hue where exposed; under her clothing, much of it bore deep bruises from skilled torture inflicted at the direction of Scholk. When she found the strength to reply, it was in a voice raspy and weak from pain, exhaustion, and effort. "I have nothing to tell you," she repeated for what seemed like the millionth time. It did no good, of course; in some dimly functioning part of her mind, the young woman wondered if she could make something up that would satisfy the zealous KGB agent.  
  
"Of course you do, Sandra. And you will tell me, sooner rather than later." He went to the door of what had become her prison cell and opened it, motioned a man inside. "Perhaps you remember Room 315? Oh, yes, you do. We've had this conversation. I thought we would recreate a few memories, for old time's sake."  
  
He whipped a cloth off the cart ushered in by the second man, revealing an electro-shock machine. "I'm sure I will enjoy this far more than you will."  
  
Outside the Soviet Embassy, Washington, D.C. * 8:00 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
Ian Marlowe navigated a brand new, dark green Chevy Impala through the maze of back streets and alleys toward the waiting surveillance car, a silver Ford Escort station wagon that had seen better days. Francine sat beside him, moaning about having to work when he was in D.C. He agreed that there were many other more enjoyable things they could be doing – but he wouldn't be in D.C. if it weren't for their day's activity.  
  
"Good morning, Mr. Marlowe, Ms. Desmond," the agent in the driver's seat of the Escort acknowledged. "It was a quiet night. Comrade Scholk went as far as the tea room on Pennsylvania Avenue a little after 10 and was back by midnight. Our people had him in sight the entire time. Apparently, he has a friend at the tea room." The meaning of friend was unmistakable.  
  
"Is he still in there?" Francine motioned to the embassy building.  
  
"Yes. Our inside source says he's a late riser, between 9 and 10, usually." Leave it to the FBI to have a source inside the Soviet Embassy; one had to wonder what infraction that information was hiding.  
  
"Joy, two more hours of nothing. Okay, consider yourself relieved."  
  
"Thanks, Ms. Desmond. See you tomorrow morning."  
  
I hope not, Francine thought as she waved to the departing FBI man. "I don't get it," she said to Ian as he pulled the car into the vacated space. "We've been watching Scholk on and off since he arrived in country, but all the intense scrutiny and review of the old data has only told us that he enjoys the company of a waitress at the English tea room on Pennsylvania Avenue."  
  
An hour of cold, boring duty passed, lulling the Marine and the federal agent into hazy stupor of half-sleep. With no ceremony at intemperate speed, Ian smacked his forehead with his open palm and screeched out "Of course!" At Francine's concerned, questioning look, he calmed his voice and asked, "Can we get current blueprints of the embassy compound?"  
  
"I suppose," Francine mused. "We've used them before too…" At Ian's raised eyebrow, she shrugged. "Need to know," she apologized. "What are you thinking?"  
  
"That there's another exit from the compound that we don't know about. What if the Soviets, through a dummy corporation, owned a building not too far from here where a tunnel from the embassy came out?"  
  
Francine stared at him for a long moment, knowing that if Lee and Billy had once gotten in that way, there was nothing preventing a reverse situation. "Those bastards are just sneaky enough to pull it off, too." She activated the car phone and punched in Billy's direct line.  
  
The Agency * 11:55 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
Amanda sat in the conference room with General Reese while the military man pulled every string he could think of to get information about the owners of buildings within one block of the Soviet Embassy. She took notes while he repeated tidbits and nuggets given to him by networks of informants and agents in place since the Cuban Missile Crisis – or perhaps even longer.  
  
"Somebody will appreciate the fact that these are all local calls," he groaned after one particularly frustrating attempt that led nowhere.  
  
"General Reese, sir, I don't think anybody is counting the cost where Sandra's life is in danger." Amanda gave him with her peaceful, calming smile.  
  
He sighed and reached out to pat her hand. "Make you a deal, Mrs. Stetson. Call me Alex.."  
  
Amanda took his hand and squeezed it. "Please, call me Amanda, Gen – Alex."  
  
"Good. Thank you for all you've done to help with this. You can't imagine…"  
  
"Actually, Alex, I don't have to."  
  
Reese looked away as he saw the tears glistening in Amanda's eyes. "No, I suppose you don't. But you'd be doing this anyway, wouldn't you?"  
  
"Yes, I would," Amanda affirmed, "and not just because it's my job. I only got to spend a little while with Sandra, but it's enough to know that she's a very special young lady with a lot of potential."  
  
"Just like her mother. She'll be fine." He turned back toward the agent across the table. "She'll be fine."  
  
Outside the Soviet Embassy * 12 noon EST (GMT-5)  
  
Lee Stetson sat on the park bench and looked bored, as befit a public servant on his lunch break. It wasn't hard; with Amanda back at the office working with General Reese on Ian's dummy corporation idea, he had no one to talk to as he watched the front entrance of the Embassy for one Leon Ivanich Scholk to make an appearance. The comings and goings of average American citizens held no interest for him, but that's all he saw for the first 89 minutes he spent at his post. Just as he was ready to call in his relief, the main gate to the compound opened and a car with diplomatic plates pulled out into traffic on 16th Street. Scholk sat in the back seat, apparently directing the driver.  
  
Moving his mouth as little as possible, Lee spoke into the microphone in his collar, directing Ian and Francine to the car so they could follow it. Maybe this would be the break they needed.  
  
In the Virginia Countryside * 2:20 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"We've been tailing this dude for almost an hour. What's he doing?"  
  
Francine shrugged at the speaker. "I have no clue, Ian. If it were Sunday, I'd say he's out for a Sunday drive, but it's Friday."  
  
"Maybe he's counting cows."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Well, what if there's a bovine gap? I mean, we could be entering the beef race, when huge proportions of our Gross National Product are redirected from civilian industry toward trampling the Soviet Union into submission in the cattle processing industry." Ian Marlowe kept his face almost motionless, waiting for the reaction.  
  
"You… you're crazy," Francine murmured just loudly enough for him to hear over the humming of the motor.  
  
"Yes, I am. About you. But that's neither here nor there in this discussion. Can you think of any better reason that an official from the Soviet Union would be out joyriding on a Friday afternoon in late winter – before the trees have even budded?"  
  
Eyebrows furrowed in thought, Francine just looked at her companion as they continued to follow the Soviet Zil sedan. "Red herring," she finally said.  
  
"Come again?"  
  
"Red herring. He's just throwing off any routine surveillance by doing something slightly suspicious. We do it to the other side all the time to waste resources."  
  
Ian thought for a moment. "Well, we'll see. He's taking the exit onto the interstate headed back to D.C. Odds that he'll go back to the Embassy without passing 'Go'?"  
  
"No better than 2 to 1 – probably 3 to 2 or even 4 to 3."  
  
"Remind me to take you to Las Vegas next time I go. You're much better at that than I am."  
  
"I prefer Monte Carlo."  
  
"Whatever your heart desires, mon ami."  
  
Francine proved right; the sedan pulled back into the Embassy about 80 minutes after Lee dispatched them, and the car had never stopped except to obey traffic rules. "Well, paint me vermilion and give me gills," Ian groused as the couple made their way back to the Agency for the afternoon briefing. "Red herrings, indeed."  
  
"Moooooooo," Francine replied.  
  
Ian had to pull the car over because he couldn't control the car and laugh at the same time.  
  
The Agency * 4:45 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"Alex, sir, I think we may have a solid lead here," Amanda said as General Reese hung up the phone in disgust beside her.  
  
"Not from that phone call," he negated. "Useless son of a…"  
  
Amanda gave her best smile of motherly toleration and pointed toward the map on the wall. "No, sir, general. I think I've found another dummy corporate layer for the owners of this building right here across the street from the back corner of the Soviet Embassy."  
  
Reese had the grace to look abashed as he chuckled at his own grim determination. "Amanda, you are amazing. How do you have the patience to sit and do paper research?"  
  
"Oh, this is a perfectly normal situation. Lee's out running around chasing people leads, so I just do the bookwork. You used to it."  
  
"I'll bet you're just as good at the other, Amanda, when you get a chance.  
  
She smiled again, more brightly. "I had a great teacher."  
  
Lee heard that from the hallway as he passed and changed course, coming up behind his wife and laying his hands on her slim shoulders. "Are you referring to me?" he asked with a wink at the older Army man.  
  
"Maybe," she replied with a sly grin. "Or maybe not. You don't know what I learned."  
  
As Lee opened his mouth to counterattack, Billy entered the conference room, followed by Francine and Ian. "Any luck in here?" he asked, pulling out a chair and plunking his heavy frame into it.  
  
"Maybe," General Reese allowed. "Amanda has been slowly uncovering the layers of ownership on several buildings around the embassy. She's just told me of a promising lead."  
  
"Amanda, I always did figure you were the work horse of the unit," Ian quipped, earning an elbow in the ribs from Francine.  
  
With a nod from Billy, Amanda laid out her latest find, by far the most promising of a short list of possible alternate escape terminals. "And according to the blueprints, this building is the closest private building to the wine cellar and laundry facilities in the sub-basement of the residential building on the grounds." She oriented the group to the suspect property on the map and on the blueprint of the embassy.  
  
Lee growled. "Places we have no way to observe because they are deep inside. Perfect from their perspective."  
  
"Let's not get carried away, yet," Billy warned. "We still have to prove that the Soviets actually own the private property."  
  
Ian and Francine looked at each other in perfect understanding. "Sir," Ian started, "could we double our surveillance on that corner for the next 24 hours, just to see if by chance we've missed something that's been under our noses all along? Francine and I can start at the 8:00 shift change."  
  
"Do it," Billy affirmed. "Amanda, keep working on this property paper chase. Lee, get back to the microdot and see if you can get a lead on reestablishing contact. Shall we order dinner?"  
  
Everyone groaned at the thought of yet another cafeteria meal, but no one balked. Time was running out, and they all knew it.  
  
Somewhere in the Washington, D.C. Area * 5:15 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"Comrade Scholk, why don't you just kill her now and be done with her?" Pavel Constantinovich pleaded, finally finding some pity for the body that had once been a vibrant young woman.  
  
"Because then she will have beaten me, Pavel. And no one bests Leon Ivanich. No one."  
  
The heap on the floor stirred, light firing briefly in the dull, sunken, blue-molded eyes. "Bet me," a croaking voice said, barely audible even in the close confines of the brick room.  
  
"You see, Pavel? Defiant even now. If I didn't know better, I'd say that she knew absolutely nothing about this whole thing. But she knows – not much, but enough. And I will get it out of her if it's the last thing I ever do."  
  
The Agency * 9:20 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"Eureka!" It wasn't original, but it fit, Lee thought as soon as the word escaped his lips. General Reese and Amanda came out into the bullpen from the conference room at his utterance, and Billy came at a run from his office.  
  
"You've got the new link?" Billy asked in a breathless whisper as he came to a stop at the computer terminal where Lee sat.  
  
"Right here in black and white. Business connections through a fictitious West German company called Heiß Kreideintelligent – we go in through the West German consulate in Gdansk and they will get the message through to Warsaw. The leader of the cell is someone named Stefan – he says he knows the network from the good old days."  
  
Amanda hugged Lee's shoulders. "I'm so happy for you," she said, but her tone indicated that she wasn't thrilled with what she knew would come soon.  
  
"There's more. Stefan says he has information on an assassination plot to be carried out next week. He isn't sure who the target is, but guesses that it's got to be Walesa, Jaruzelski, or possibly even Glemp."  
  
"I'd bet money on Glemp." General Reese commanded their collective attention. "Solidarity doesn't like him, the Communists like him alive but might like him more dead –if the KGB were to mastermind his assassination, they could blame it on Solidarity and make the crackdown in 1981 look like a military exercise."  
  
Billy pondered that for a moment. "Do you have any indications from your end that can corroborate that hypothesis?"  
  
"I don't at the moment, but I can get someone on it as soon as my ops officer is in – say just after 1:00 tomorrow morning. I'll fax the order over so it's clear."  
  
Lee took another practical angle. "Billy, I've got to start getting my legend in order."  
  
"Write it up for Leatherneck for first thing in the morning – send a confirmation message back through first, though. Are we all up for the overnight surveillance shift?"  
  
Three grown ups moaned like children at the thought, but in jest. The work was too important to whine about.  
  
Outside the Soviet Embassy, Washington, D.C. * March 18, 1989 * 12:05 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"You know, under other circumstances, this would be romantic," Ian Marlowe grumbled as he sipped from a steaming cup of coffee and wiggled around in the front seat of the Chevy Impala to find a more comfortable position.  
  
Francine giggled, shifted the camera in her lap, and ran her left hand through his hair. "We might have to make it that way occasionally…"  
  
He flashed his smile at her. "I'm kind of counting on that. It's the only reason I suggested that we take the first double coverage shift."  
  
"It is not," she replied, challenging him to keep up the argument.  
  
"Ah, my love, you know me too well." He slid his free arm around the beautiful woman beside him. "I want this bastard, Francine. It's bad enough that he plies his trade in Moscow, but that he's here and doing it on American soil is just beyond outrageous."  
  
Her head settled naturally in the curve of his shoulder – and high enough that she could continue her vigilant watch on the property Amanda and General Reese had pinpointed – Francine sighed in a combination of contentment and frustration unique to the situation. "Call me that again. And you're right, it is outrageous."  
  
"My love. My love. Wow, that sounds wonde – oh, hello, what do we have here?"  
  
The two agents sat up, fully alert as they watched and photographed a well- dressed man exit a taxi and pull out a key to open the building they had under surveillance. "It's too dark for me to say positively, but he walks like Scholk," Ian stated as the man disappeared from view. "What time was the last confirmed sighting we have of him?"  
  
Francine checked the mini-clipboard on the visor over her head. "After this afternoon's joyride, we had him under surveillance continuously from 6:30 until 10:15 – he left the Embassy, went to the movies and saw some French import, went to his favorite tea room, and came back. He must have slipped out of here without us catching him – maybe around 11 when all those people left at once."  
  
"Didn't Amanda say that there's a telemarketing service in the building? The second shift must have been let go around then. Damn – should have thought about that."  
  
"Assuming he did slip out with second shift – why risk coming back before the day shift comes in?"  
  
Ian crossed his arms and stared out at the street. His voice was gritty as he answered the question. "Over confidence. And it just hanged him."  
  
The two waited in the cold for a little more than an hour and a half – keeping warm in some very inventive ways at times – before they struck pay dirt. "É violá!" Francine proclaimed in a hushed voice when light briefly flooded the sidewalk outside the door of the building she and Ian had been watching.  
  
"Hallelujah, thank you, Jesus," Ian added, glad that he had started the car a little while before to ward off the late March chill that even the heat he and Francine generated on their own couldn't completely overcome. The two watched the man they were sure was Scholk get into a car a block down from the door. "Here we go."  
  
Francine spoke into the car phone as Ian pulled away from the curb, alerting the night duty desk at the Agency and rousing Lee, Amanda, General Reese, and Billy from their late night vigils elsewhere in the area. The two teams would provide back up for Francine and Ian in the pursuit. "Do you think we'll find out where he's keeping Sandra?"  
  
"We'll be lucky if we do tonight. It's going to be damned hard to follow him inconspicuously at this time of night."  
  
She pulled a face as she thought about Ian's words. "That's rotten luck," she agreed. "If he goes outside the city, you'll probably have to turn off."  
  
"Yep. But at least we'll have a direction."  
  
The two other teams joined the tail, staying half a mile or so back. About twenty minutes from the Embassy, the car Scholk was driving turned off the main road onto a smaller road, and Ian felt the risk was too great to continue in his role as the lead car. While Francine talked with Billy in the third vehicle, Ian turned their car around and went back to the smaller road. Amanda and Lee, in the Jeep Cherokee, also turned around, but they turned onto the smaller road to follow Billy's car.  
  
"Well, what should we do?" Ian asked as they came to a stop, well screened behind a budding bush.  
  
"We can stay here to wait until Billy calls us with the first turn. Then we can follow Amanda and Lee."  
  
Ian flashed a bright smile at her in the pre-dawn darkness. "It's nice and quiet…"  
  
"You are a bad influence, Colonel Marlowe." She leaned over and kissed him with all the passion she could muster after a full day of work and 6 hours on stakeout. "And I like it like that."  
  
He laughed; they settled together in the car to wait for the next call from Billy.  
  
Warsaw, Poland * 8:10 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
"Ah, friend Stefan. How are you this bright morning?" Father Milos asked his parishioner, hoping for a different answer than he had received each morning since Sunday.  
  
Stefan, who limped toward the priest with evident pain, smiled. "It's a small thing, but I found out that the initial message has been received. There seems to be a delay in the network – our messenger met with my contact on Wednesday but I only heard this morning before mass, and it was very brief – just enough to confirm that they have the information."  
  
"That's something, then. When do you suppose they'll contact us again?"  
  
"I have no idea, Father. I just hope it's soon."  
  
Father Milos nodded. "Do you still believe it will be next Friday?"  
  
Stefan grimaced. "It makes all too much sense. It's the only time all three logical targets might be together in public. I just wish I knew who was truly behind it."  
  
"I'd like to know who the assassin is. At least we could stop him and buy ourselves some time."  
  
A skeletal figure approached the two men, apparently uncomfortable in his white alb with its already unsnapped black cassock underneath. "Father Milos, you have inspired me. I wish the Cardinal could have heard you – he might change his mind about the underground universities."  
  
"Not likely, but thanks for the thought. Stefan, may I introduce Jaruslav Milowanowicz, from the Chancery."  
  
The two men shook hands as Stefan eyed the younger man thoughtfully. "Moscow Olympics, 1980, right? Rifle team – you won several medals."  
  
Father Milowanowicz blushed. "Yes. You have a very good memory."  
  
"You made us proud. God's peace be with you, Father Milos, Father Milowanowicz."  
  
"See you tomorrow, Stefan," Father Milos acknowledged, turning away from his co-conspirator toward his guest from the Chancery.  
  
Stefan limped away, wondering idly if the Olympian had continued to shoot since his successes so many years ago. 


	5. Where I am going, you cannot follow

DISCLAIMER: If you recognize people or organizations from the television series, they belong to Shoot the Moon Productions and Warner Brothers. I've borrowed them with love and deep appreciation for the many years of enjoyment I've received from them and am making absolutely no money from this enterprise. If you recognize them from history, no infringement is intended on them; they merely serve to provide the story with an authentic setting. If you don't recognize them from either of those two sources, they're products of my very odd imagination and I claim full responsibility for their imaginary actions.  
  
Chapter 5 * Somewhere in the Washington, D.C. Area * 2:15 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
Amanda and Lee took over as lead tail vehicle when the car Scholk was in made another turn several miles from the highway. The plates on the car had traced back to a company that General Reese had recognized from the research he and Amanda had been doing – it was two layers above the company that owned the building Scholk had been seen leaving. Even if Ian's instincts were wrong about Scholk having Sandra, everyone agreed that whatever they discovered tonight would be of great interest to the FBI.  
  
Scholk's car made another turn, this time into what appeared to be a long driveway in a sparsely populated neighborhood. Lee had no choice but to keep going, but Amanda, watching in the rearview mirror as her husband slowly drove by, was able to see that the car came to a stop and then was shut off. "Fifteen Thirty Seven Lebanon Avenue," Amanda said into her transmitter, giving Billy the address so he could relay that to the Agency. He and the general were two miles back; Francine and Ian had taken up the middle position as the three teams leapfrogged.  
  
"Good work. How close can we get and still have a visual?" Billy's voice came over the transmitter, ghost-like in the static of a long-range signal on the hand-held devices.  
  
"I'd say about a quarter of a mile in either direction. There's heavy brush along the road and no evidence of driveways for at least three- quarters of a mile to either side."  
  
"Billy, how about rearward surveillance?" Ian asked.  
  
"Let me check the property out before I say yes to that, Colonel. In the mean time, let's set up as Amanda suggests, two on the way in and Lee, you and Amanda stay beyond the house. It's time to catch a bad guy."  
  
The Chancery, Warsaw, Poland * 8:35 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Father Jaruslav Milowanowicz unlocked the door of his tiny flat within the religious complex, smiling to himself at the fact that the flats were really cells. He suspected that his current residence would be traded for a different type of cell soon – if he lived.  
  
Inside, he bolted the door and turned to his cot, bending low to reach the long black box underneath. With an audible squeal, the box opened to reveal his best friend. The rifle, a special custom order from Hoch and Kechler, the German gun manufacturer, gleamed even in the dim light from the single overhead bulb. Jaruslav extracted the rifle from its case, caressing it as he began to oil the black barrel and buff the walnut stock. If he had to die, he would do so with his friend, and perhaps take some of his enemies with him.  
  
Somewhere in the Washington, D.C. Area * 2:55 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
Sandra Reese was mercifully unconscious, although that state of affairs had only just come about. Leon Ivanich Scholk stood several feet away from her limp form, pondering the last words the young woman had uttered. "International Federal Film. Lee Stetson."  
  
Scholk knew of Stetson; the vaunted Scarecrow's dossier had been mandatory reading prior to his assignment to the embassy staff. International Federal Film… that sounded familiar, as though he had just heard it recently. The steady breathing of his captive made it easy for him to lapse into a semi-meditative state, and after a few minutes of free association, the answer came to him.  
  
"The woman with Marlowe," he muttered, bells going off in his head. "Now I have a problem." Calmly, the Soviet agent worked through his options, then decided on a course of action. He stepped out of the small interrogation room and came back a moment later with several yards of rope, a roll of duct tape, and a U.S. Army duffel bag. As thoroughly as he could, he bound Sandra's hands and feet with the rope, then secured the knots – and her mouth – with the adhesive. He propped the unresponsive body up, then dropped the duffel bag over her head, bent her knees to stuff them in at the top.  
  
Without much concern for how, he picked up the bag and carried it to the patio door, careful not to let light show through as he pulled the curtains open and parted the sliding glass doors with one hand. As he had planned, the fenced yard gave him cover from any prying eyes until he could reach the brush a foot or so from the tree line, and he hoped that his movement in the trees – if observed – would look like a large animal rather than a human being. Scholk carried his burden back 100 yards into the woods, where he had prepared a burial place in the hollow of the trunk of a large tree. The body would be hard to spot at casual glance but easy to find during a true search. Then he returned to the house, convinced that no one had seen a thing.  
  
Somewhere in the Washington, D.C. Area * 3:15 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"Did you see that?" Amanda shook Lee's arm and pointed off toward the back of the house Scholk had driven to.  
  
"What?" He stifled a yawn and followed Amanda's slim finger to the fence line.  
  
Amanda shrugged. "I don't know. It looked like a dark shadow moving against the dark fence – just briefly, and something other than a tree branch."  
  
"How long?"  
  
"Two, maybe three seconds. At first I thought it might be the gate, but I think it was more human shaped."  
  
Lee lifted an eyebrow and picked up the radio. "Anybody see anything?" he asked, keeping his voice much quieter than he really needed to.  
  
"We were just wondering if we did," Francine reported. "Ian thinks he may have seen something in the trees, but it might have been a deer or something."  
  
"Negative here, Scarecrow. We're too far away." Billy sounded disappointed.  
  
Amanda spoke, more loudly so she could be heard from the passenger side. "As soon as it's daylight, sir, I think we ought to search the woods."  
  
"I'll play that hunch, Amanda," she heard Alex Reese say. "But maybe something else will happen."  
  
Ian had a thought. "Billy, if you call in coverage for us to be in place when Scholk leaves, we can tackle the woods that much faster."  
  
Billy laughed. "Lieutenant Colonel, if your name is on the promotion list next Monday, how would you like a job?"  
  
"Doing what, sir?"  
  
"Exactly what you're doing right now – making a really good partner for my best solo agent."  
  
It was Francine's turn to laugh. "And I didn't even have to hand him a package."  
  
KGB Headquarters * Moscow, USSR *11:50 a.m. (GMT+3)  
  
G.A. Tolstoy had been having a wonderful day. His mistress had been extraordinary that morning, the weather was warming up, the daylight lasted for almost 12 hours now, and his supervisor had just told him that he was short-listed for a two year posting in at the Soviet Embassy in London. He bounced into his work area, past his secretary – who, of course, wasn't titled as his secretary because that was a bourgeois title – and never missed a whistled note of the Internationale as he read his messages. When the phone rang, he expected that his day would not be adversely affected.  
  
Then his assistant told him who was on the other end of the connection, and his stomach lurched. "I'll take it in here," he told the woman, closing his office door and making his way to the phone on the desk two steps inside. "Comrade Scholk," he said. "I presume this is good news?"  
  
The crackling line gave the man in America a more ominous tone than usual as he relayed his actions of the past hour. Tolstoy turned progressively grayer as the news came across the Atlantic Ocean. "You are safe, though?"  
  
"For the moment. I saw no evidence that I have been tailed to this location, although I did have my usual nuisance spotters on me this afternoon for a while."  
  
"You must leave America. I need you in Poland, Leon Ivanich, now that you are finished here. Check in with the chief of station when you arrive back at the Embassy. Your orders will be waiting."  
  
"Of course, comrade. And there are no worries. When she is found, she will be found dead of asphyxiation, and there are, I shall say this delicately, signs that she enjoyed her stay her rather too much for her own good."  
  
"Not yours, I hope."  
  
"Oh, no. Pavel Constantinovich was more than happy to oblige once I explained to him all the reasons he didn't want to say 'nyet.'"  
  
Scholk scared him, Tolstoy admitted a moment later as he ended the conversation. The man was just too thorough. It was good to have him on the Soviet side. Were he an American, well…  
  
Somewhere in the Washington, D.C. Area * 4:15 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
Lee and Amanda huddled together in the back seat of the Wagoneer, watching the property where Leon Ivanich Scholk was hiding. Billy had arranged for a search and rescue team to be standing by as soon as Scholk left the house; Lee and Amanda would manage the team while Billy and General Reese in one car and Ian and Francine in the other followed Scholk. Ian had managed to plant a tracking device on the Yugoslavian made vehicle in which Scholk had arrived and the hope was that he would head directly back to the Embassy – there was a warm welcome prepared for him about three blocks from the Soviet compound.  
  
"I wish he'd just hurry up and leave," Amanda groaned as she tried to stretch in the cramped quarters.  
  
"So do I. I have the feeling we saw him a while ago, and I have this gut- gnawing hunch Sandra is in those woods." Lee's quiet tone rumbled through his chest as he shook off sleepiness. "She won't last long if she's hurt at all, even assuming she's alive. It's cold outside."  
  
Amanda squeezed her husband's hands. "I think we'd know from Alex if Sandra were dead. Just like I knew Jamie was alive all that time."  
  
"The magic of parental connection?" Lee smiled.  
  
"Something like that. Maybe someday…"  
  
Lee sat up. "Yes…?"  
  
Amanda's smile lit the dim Jeep. "Maybe someday we'll be able to explain the power of love like that. You know, the kind that keeps us connected."  
  
Lee returned her smile with a little gleam in his eyes. "I thought perhaps you were going to say that I'd understand the power of parental connection someday."  
  
"I'm not ruling it out." Before he could reply, she kissed him soundly. "I'm also not saying yes to anything in this environment. We need to talk about it, though."  
  
"Your mother has been busy," Lee said, chuckling and reveling in the momentary thought of being a parent in the biological sense as well as in the stepfather role. Or, he admitted to himself, even as the adoptive parent of a child in need of a good, loving home.  
  
The radio crackled, interrupting the moment. The agitation in Billy's voice came through in his words: "Scholk is leaving. SAR team move in."  
  
"That's us." The husband and wife said together as they went back to being the top-level agents they were when Scholk's car pulled away from the house.  
  
On the Road Back to Washington * 4:40 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"I think he knows we're here," Ian grumbled to Francine as the blonde maneuvered their Chevy along the winding back roads of rural Maryland. "Wherever here is."  
  
"We've just crossed back into Maryland. He hasn't gotten five miles away from the border since he left the house. Why do you think he knows we're here?"  
  
Ian shrugged, studying the darkness outside the car as the scenery whipped by. "I don't quite know. Maybe he's just clearing the tail and I'm nervous."  
  
"At least the transmitter is working, so there's no worries about staying in visual contact."  
  
"I'd feel better if we did."  
  
On the Road Back to Washington * 4:42 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"I'd feel better if we did," General Reese said to Billy as they listened to the squawking of the transmitter over a hand-held receiver.  
  
"I wish we could tail him close up, too," Billy agreed. "Dr. Smyth would have my hide if we get caught violating standing procedures."  
  
"That man scares me."  
  
Grimacing, Billy nodded. "Most of us, too. Except Amanda, I think. You know he's Ian's uncle."  
  
"Oh, yes, I know. More's the pity for Colonel Marlowe, of course. Damn, I wish the bastard would pick a direction and go. I hate the ones who actually follow procedure."  
  
"You have this problem in Berlin?"  
  
The general grunted. "Almost never. That's why we catch them so often." He sat in tense silence for a moment, then keyed the voice transmitter. "Green 1 to Green 3, what's the SAR status?"  
  
A burst of static followed, then Amanda's voice crackled through. "…dogs on a scent now. Hold on…" Reese fidgeted as the silence stretched, then slumped in anguish as the answer came from Amanda. "No, nothing there. It was a depression in the soil."  
  
"Scholk is a dead man."  
  
Billy didn't even bother to answer as the miles fell away under the tires of the cars.  
  
Somewhere in the Washington, D.C. Area * 5:00 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
The search dogs barked raucously as their handlers pulled them away from the tree trunk. "They've got something!" the lead handler shouted to the paramedics and federal agents who were scattered around the wooded area.  
  
Two dozen people came at a run, arriving in various states of breathlessness in the damp cold of the late winter morning. An efficient team from the Civil Air Patrol cleared the brush away from the bottom of the tree and extricated something from the hollow inside.  
  
"It's her – and she's alive!" a paramedic yelled as the medical crew began to evaluate Sandra Reese's condition.  
  
Amanda and Lee exchanged relieved smiles as Amanda pulled out the transmitter to contact the rest of the Agency group. General Reese's exuberant if static-laden Rebel yell could be heard across the forest a moment later.  
  
"Go with her, Amanda. We'll be there as soon as we get Scholk."  
  
"General, um, Alex, don't you want to meet her at the hospital?"  
  
"I want him first. I don't want him to get away. Call the NSA and get a message to my son, Kevin Reese. He'll come."  
  
Amanda looked at Lee after she signed off. "I don't get it," she said as the couple watched the professional rescuers start an IV on Sandra. "If it were Jamie or Philip or you…"  
  
"It's a guy thing, Amanda. We have this natural instinct to go after anything that hurts someone we care about. And given what Ian told us over dinner last night, Scholk has been on the general's list for a long time. First the mistaken assassination what, eleven years ago? Then the Moscow incident you remembered, now this. That's three strikes, and we all know what happens after three strikes."  
  
"You're out," Amanda nodded, enlightened but not necessarily convinced. "Find out which hospital they're taking her to so I can call her brother."  
  
Lee turned to go toward the medics, but turned back with a small smile. "For the record, I'd go to the hospital with you."  
  
Amanda smiled back. "No, you wouldn't. You'd go after the bad guy, just like you did in California and every other time. And I still love you."  
  
Lee just shook his head and resumed his mission.  
  
Near the Soviet Embassy * Washington, D.C. * 5:20 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
Leon Ivanich Scholk spotted the dragnet with just enough time to turn off the main road into an alley between two residential blocks. "Damned Americans," he muttered in English as he shut the car off and scrambled out. "I wonder which idiot they tagged this time?"  
  
With great agility, Scholk leapt two fences and sauntered up the residential street with his briefcase, looking only slightly out of place because of the early hour. In his mind, he reviewed his options for getting back into the Embassy unseen, and came up with a secret entrance to the underground service tunnels that would take only a few minutes on foot from his current location. The Russian continued his early morning stroll, stopping only to buy an early edition of The Washington Post, until he arrived at a 24-hour Laundromat about three blocks from the main entrance of the Soviet compound. He asked for the key to the men's room; once inside, he reversed the key and opened the supply closet, revealing another door inside. Leaving the key on the sink, the man stepped into the supply closet and vanished into the depths of underground Washington.  
  
Near the Soviet Embassy * Washington, D.C. * 5:30 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"Nothing," Billy said, slamming Scholk's abandoned car with a tightly clenched fist. "Just when we got within the sightline protocols."  
  
"We had him until the other Yugo pulled onto the road," Francine complained. "Driving into the sunrise made it hard to tell after a couple of lane changes which was which."  
  
"I know, Francine. It's not your fault. It's the damned regulations."  
  
Ian stood with the general near the Chevy he and Francine had been driving, staring up the alley. "We'd better alert Dulles. He'll be out of here within the hour if he made it back to the Embassy."  
  
"We won't be able to touch him," General Reese reminded the younger man. "He's got a legitimate diplomatic legend and thus immunity."  
  
"Not if Sandra can identify him." Ian's tone of voice made it seem impossible for that not to be the case.  
  
Billy shook his head. "Even then, it's very hard to get a judge to lift the immunity. And your uncle isn't exactly the biggest fan of canceling diplomatic privileges, anyway. We've saved too many operations thanks to loopholes like that."  
  
"I am not waiting another three years to get this man." Each word escaped Alex's lips with brutal intensity.  
  
Francine went to the general, laid her hand on his sleeve. "Go see Sandra first. We'll go to Dulles and track him."  
  
After a moment, General Reese, hard-bitten Army veteran, looked at the agent with tear-softened eyes. "Thank you," he managed, before the weight of his daughter's rescue hit him and he collapsed beside the Agency sedan in sobs.  
  
The Heliport of Johns Hopkins Trauma Center, Baltimore, Maryland * 6:10 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
Kevin Reese had not known that his sister was in danger, nor had he known that his father was in town. It was not, he reflected as he watched the Angelflight chopper which carried his critically injured sister flare for landing, something that he should not be upset by, but he was oddly calm about being left in the dark. Perhaps it was his job with the NSA that enabled him to see things through a different lens – the larger picture, so to speak. Dad had gotten to him with the news when he could do something productive, rather than sit removed from the action worrying while others worked to find and free Sandra. More accurately, Dad had gotten someone to get to him, but it amounted to the same thing.  
  
Not until the gurney approached within three feet could Kevin see his little sister for the forest of tubes, stabilizing equipment, and blankets which surrounded her. What he saw in her bruised, blank face frightened him – and took him back eleven years, to a beautiful spring day in Rota, Spain, when time shattered for the Reese family. Sandra's face looked just as their mother's had when she lay in the parking lot of the hotel, bleeding out from her mortal wounds as her children screamed for help in every language they knew. "No," Kevin whispered. "Not again."  
  
Security Office, Dulles International Airport * 6:55 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
Francine handed Ian a printout as a second copy spit out from the printer behind her. "This is the list of flights on which the Soviet Embassy has standby seating today."  
  
"Efficient," he growled, looking over the two page list. "There's two dozen flights on here."  
  
"Yes, and with Scholk, we can't even rule any of them out. He could go right back to Moscow, in which case the London, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam flights are the most likely, or he could go underground for a while, which means Buenos Aires, Tokyo, Hong Kong, or Cairo are logical places. Not to mention the 8 other cities."  
  
The two left the office and headed for the ticket counters at the front of the International Departures Terminal. "What about domestic flights?" Ian asked as they wandered the lengthening lines of passengers checking in for their overseas flights.  
  
"Not likely, but we have someone watching the last minute purchase lists of each airline. The problem with that is that once he flies incognito within the United States, he's lost his immunity. Scholk isn't that dumb."  
  
"Good point."  
  
Scholk arrived at the airport within a half hour, but Ian and Francine could only watch helplessly as he boarded the 8:30 British Airways flight to London, escaping justice and available now to work his dastardly magic wherever else the Soviets might need him.  
  
Johns Hopkins University Medical Center, Baltimore, Maryland * 11:45 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"General Reese, your daughter is an extremely lucky young woman," the trauma surgeon said as he sat down across from the general and his son and began to take his surgical booties off. "She will need some extensive physical therapy once the bones in her legs have healed, but the internal damage was comparatively minor and the burns were well treated after they were administered."  
  
"What about her face?"  
  
"We were able to repair the damage from inside her mouth, so although her jaw is wired shut right now, she'll look more normal in about two weeks. Her hands will also heal after therapy."  
  
Kevin Reese sank back against the cushions, relieved to have the answer to the question he was about to ask. "Will playing piano be part of that therapy?" he asked instead, knowing that his sister would need her music as an emotional outlet.  
  
The surgeon shrugged. "I don't know – the orthopaedists will be able to tell you more about that. Can I ask a question?"  
  
Alex nodded; the trauma specialist pursed his lips and exhaled before he continued. "What happened to her? This is no ordinary rape."  
  
"You're right, it's no ordinary rape. Let's just say that it's a matter of National Security and that my daughter has a penchant for getting mixed up with the wrong people."  
  
"Oh," was all the doctor could say. He looked at the younger man plaintively, hoping for additional information.  
  
The NSA agent smiled with ice in his eyes. "Don't look at me for information. I have a top secret clearance and I don't have 'need to know' on this."  
  
The doctor stood with difficulty. "Okay, well, Sandra will be in recovery for a while longer. Once she's in ICU, you can see her." With that, he stretched out his hand to the general, but before the two men could shake hands, the paging system called for him and he was gone.  
  
Kevin locked eyes with his father. "Are you staying or going back to Berlin?"  
  
"Neither. I'm going after the man who did this." The expression on his face gave everything away.  
  
"Scholk." A statement, not a question.  
  
"You can't go with me."  
  
"You can't stop me."  
  
Lieutenant General Alexander Reese put his arm around his only son, and the two men wept in the antiseptic waiting room of the Trauma Center.  
  
Heathrow Airport, London, England * 5:20 p.m. GMT  
  
Leon Ivanich Scholk waited patiently as his international call was put through to Moscow. Tolstoy had not told him anything beyond his arrival in London, so he needed to talk with his superior before he could take another flight.  
  
Tolstoy's voice on the other end of the line was haggard, but he seemed to be in good spirits. "You got out without further trouble?"  
  
"Barely, but I think it's safe to say that I shouldn't go back to America anytime soon."  
  
A sigh, of relief or frustration, Scholk couldn't tell. "Well, that's fine for the moment. You are booked under your German alias on Austrian Air into Vienna with a connecting flight to Warsaw. You have about 45 minutes before your flight leaves for Vienna."  
  
"Warsaw. You did mention Poland. Who is my contact?"  
  
"You'll be met under your real name. Respond with a greeting about Uncle Vladimir."  
  
"I understand."  
  
"Good. Further orders will await you once you're in place." Tolstoy hung up his phone in Moscow, leaving Scholk holding the receiver in London and wondering just what was happening in Poland that required his special set of skills.  
  
The Agency * 12:35 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
The debriefing after the successful rescue of Sandra Reese had been exhausting and exhaustive. And that was before Dr. Austin Smyth joined the team of inquisitors.  
  
"Well, children," the austere Agency leader said around his omnipresent cigarette holder, "we've let the fox out of the henhouse. Where's the lazy watchdog?"  
  
Lee ground his teeth but didn't say anything as Amanda laid a hand on his arm to still him. Beside them, Ian did the same to Francine.  
  
Billy, having no one in the building to check him, made an acid reply. "In Congress."  
  
Dr. Smyth stopped short, not expecting such a forthright answer. When he spoke again after ten seconds, it was with less venom. "That is, unfortunately, true. So, how do we compensate for the underfunding and lack of staffing?"  
  
Francine wouldn't be restrained this time. "Fire Congress an appropriate their entire budget. We'd be golden for years."  
  
"I like that idea, Desmond, but there is something we've sworn to protect – you know, the Constitution – and unfortunately, Congress is guaranteed the right to exist under that document."  
  
"Yes, sir. But I don't think it says we have to pay them or provide them staff."  
  
Billy cringed, thinking Francine would be in big trouble. But instead, the hard-nosed Agency leader laughed out loud – for a long time. No one else quite knew hw to react, so none of the agents in the room joined him in the raucous chortling. They just smiled back and forth at each other with amusement.  
  
"What's the matter, Melrose?" Smyth asked when he regained his composure, taking out his cigarette holder and waving it in front of Billy's face.  
  
Taking a risk that the doctor's good humor would last, he quipped, "Who are you and what have you done with Dr. Smyth?"  
  
Winking, Dr. Smyth reached out to shake Ian's hand as he replied to the section chief. "Didn't you get the memo, Melrose? It's a kinder, gentler bureaucracy now."  
  
It had to have been the stress of the preceding 48 hours that caused Francine to lose it. She started with a small giggle, but soon the mirth overtook the room as she convulsed into a ball on the floor, leading everyone else to raucous laughter.  
  
Dr. Smyth beamed. "Ian, I must say that whatever you've done with Miss Desmond, I approve."  
  
Ian flashed a grin. "Thanks, Uncle Austin. I think – "  
  
Whatever Ian was about to say got lost when a signals messenger came in at run, shouting for Lee.  
  
Warsaw, Poland * 7:05 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Stefan held the ham radio as tenderly as he would a newborn. This precious connection to the free world, only today fixed with what in America would be called Rube Goldberg inventiveness, had to bring help or his country would be subsumed into the Soviet Union in a matter of weeks.  
  
He hoped that someone would answer on the other end. The codes he had were almost 7 years old and hadn't been used in nearly 6. Getting the signal across the Atlantic had taken some doing, and now as he waited for his contact in the American intelligence agency to "come to the phone", he prayed that the signal really had gone west rather than east…  
  
No, he thought after a moment, even the Russians can't redirect radio signals. Intercept, yes, but not redirect, and there was no way that a Russian could have so perfectly mimicked the Cockney accent of one of his receivers.  
  
Another long moment passed before Stefan's radio crackled and a voice emanated from the tiny speakers. "Ponderosa to Wagon Train, come in please, over," the ethereal voice called from America in accented but lucid Polish.  
  
Stefan completed the recognition sequence, then made his request. "I need a resupply of oats and I've got a horse that needs some new shoes, Ponderosa."  
  
The Agency * 1:10 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"Oats and new shoes?" Billy asked Lee as their interpreter corroborated Lee's initial guess. "What in the world?"  
  
"Wagon Train, please clarify, over." Lee shrugged at Billy as they waited for the man in Poland to restate his needs.  
  
Stefan complied quickly. "A replacement wagon with a good driver would be very helpful, over."  
  
Amanda muttered a soft "Oh, no" as Lee translated, knowing that he really would be going to Poland now.  
  
"Can you tell us more about the supplies you need, or about your situation in general? Over."  
  
"I can confirm my earlier but nothing more. I am in need of a blacksmith for those shoes. Over."  
  
More confused looks passed among the Americans before Lee came up with a plausible explanation. "We can do that for you. Do you need a 38 or a 44 in those shoes? Over."  
  
"It's a big horse. Bring the 44's. He needs shoes on all four legs. Over."  
  
Four guns? Amanda mouthed at Lee and Billy. Why?  
  
"Wagon Train, are you sure about all four legs? Maybe he just needs new nails in two shoes. Over."  
  
"No, Ponderosa, he needs four shoes. I'll take a backup supply, too, in case there's a traveling blacksmith in town later. Over."  
  
"Okay, Watering Hole. We'll see what we can do. You'll meet the stage as arranged? Over."  
  
A brief silence punctuated the room, and the Americans were just beginning to think that they had lost their connection when the Polish voice came back. "At the usual stop, Ponderosa. Check the mail when you get here. Over."  
  
Lee nodded at Billy that he understand, and Billy signed off.  
  
"So," Amanda said to her husband and her section chief, "when do we leave?"  
  
"Not 'we', Amanda. Me." Lee could still be obstinate.  
  
Billy rarely let Lee's protectiveness stand, especially in the year and a half since the Stetsons' marriage had become public knowledge. This time, however, he did, leaving Amanda with nothing to do but follow her husband out the door and home to help him pack for his assignment behind the Iron Curtain.  
  
Johns Hopkins University Medical Center * 4:45 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
Amanda knocked on the ICU waiting room door before she pushed it open to enter. Alex and Kevin Reese sat side by side on the orange plastic couch, to her eyes trying hard to be manly in their worry even though they wanted to embrace. Men, she thought. Why can't they just stop worrying about appearances and show their real feelings?  
  
Alex looked up at the intrusion. "Amanda," he said, "I'm so glad you're here."  
  
"I had to come," she replied honestly. "I hadn't heard anything more…"  
  
Kevin shrugged. "There's not much more to tell. The doctors say she'll be unconscious for at least a full day from the anesthesia and medication alone. Then we'll see. And you are…?"  
  
"Amanda Stetson," his father jumped in, "this is my son Kevin. Kevin, this is Amanda Stetson. She's the one who called you earlier. Amanda and her husband led the team that found your sister."  
  
The younger man stood up, stretching his full 6'3" frame and extending his long arm to grasp Amanda's hand in his. "Thank you, Mrs. Stetson.  
  
"You're welcome."  
  
She sat down beside the general, who clasped her hand and held it as though anchoring himself to reality. The three sat alone in silence for almost an hour before Kevin excused himself.  
  
Amanda was ready. "Alex, I need to go to Poland. Can you help me?"  
  
The lieutenant general looked at the intelligence operative with keen interest. "Why?"  
  
"Because Lee is going."  
  
"But Lee has told you that you can't go, and Billy backed him up." Which is precisely what Alex would have done, too, in the circumstance.  
  
Amanda nodded. "He's my partner, Alex. He's my life."  
  
Alex wasn't Billy in this instance, though. "I'll see what I can do, Amanda."  
  
Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * March 19, 1989 * 12:05 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
If he had to be back behind the Iron Curtain, Warsaw was his second choice. So thought Leon Ivanich Scholk as he stood beside the Vistula River waiting for his contact to appear in the midst of the quieting nightlife of Poland's capital city. Prague was his first choice, possibly, he thought mutinously, because it was the least damaged by Communist architecture. Such was the hazard of being a Western specialist in the KGB.  
  
Scholk recognized his contact by the red beret the man wore at an absurdly capitalist angle. They exchanged verification codes before the information extraction specialist got down to business. "You are Gregor Borodin, from the Ministry of Justice?"  
  
"Yes, I am."  
  
"Have you approved the Good Friday mass request from Cardinal Glemp?" Scholk asked, as requested by G.A. Tolstoy from Moscow.  
  
Borodin shook his head. "Not definitively, but we have not said no, either. And it isn't a mass. It's a Service of Tenebrae."  
  
"That's a meaningless detail. Confirm it. Everything is in place?"  
  
"Yes." No emotion showed in Borodin's face.  
  
"Good. I've been sent to make sure that our Judas is truly ready."  
  
"Someone was here to do that earlier. He was suitably impressed."  
  
"I've heard the report. Our superiors want one last check." He didn't say that the superior who wanted the last check was the very man who had been so impressed.  
  
Borodin stood in thought for several moments before he spoke in a hollow voice. "Go to the 11 o'clock mass at the Chancery later this morning. He will be there."  
  
"I'll arrange a demonstration for that afternoon, then."  
  
"A demonstration?" Borodin snorted. "You don't want him to demonstrate at a KGB shooting range, comrade. There isn't one long enough."  
  
Scholk smiled. "As a matter of fact, I was thinking about the Olympic training center. That is, I understand, familiar territory for him."  
  
"As you say."  
  
Scholk watched Borodin walk away a minute later, knowing that the man would soon be a liability. Scholk liked to deal with liabilities. Especially the ones from whom he didn't need to get information before the end.  
  
Maplewood Drive, Arlington, Virginia * March 18, 1989 * 10:20 p.m. EST (GMT- 5)  
  
Philip King was not a happy teenager as he stood radiating anger in the family room of the Stetson-King house. "Why do you have to leave?" he asked his stepfather in a voice that edged close to hysterical.  
  
Lee Stetson sighed and put his hands on his stepson's shoulders. "Philip, I wish I had a different answer than this, but…"  
  
Jamie finished the sentence from the couch beside his mother. "It's vital to national security and you're the best qualified person to do the job." Jamie's serene tone was a surprise to everyone. "Well, you are. You're even better with Mom beside you."  
  
"Shut up, wormbrain."  
  
Lee and Amanda both spoke. "Philip, don't call your brother wormbrain." The duet broke a little of the tension, and Philip relaxed enough to step closer to Lee and put his arm around the man's shoulders.  
  
"I don't know what would be worse," the older teen admitted, "you going by yourself like you are or both you and Mom going."  
  
From the arm of the sofa, Dotty laughed with a tinge of sadness. "What, are you trying to kill me with worry?"  
  
"Grandma," Jamie scolded, reaching out to grasp her hand where it rested on the back of the couch. "We'll all be okay. We have to be for Lee's sake."  
  
"Jamie, that's an amazing attitude," Lee said, genuinely surprised and touched. "When did you figure that out?"  
  
The teen shrugged. "In Lebanon. JoJo needed Marlena and me to be okay so she could focus on keeping us alive."  
  
Philip put his other arm around Lee in a full manly embrace. "I'm sorry," he whispered to his stepfather.  
  
"It's okay, son," Lee replied.  
  
A moment later, the whole family stood together, heedless of the late hour and wanting more time. 


	6. What you are going to do, do quickly

DISCLAIMER: If you recognize people or organizations from the television series, they belong to Shoot the Moon Productions and Warner Brothers. I've borrowed them with love and deep appreciation for the many years of enjoyment I've received from them and am making absolutely no money from this enterprise. If you recognize them from history, no infringement is intended on them; they merely serve to provide the story with an authentic setting. If you don't recognize them from either of those two sources, they're products of my very odd imagination and I claim full responsibility for their imaginary actions.  
  
Chapter 6 * General Officer's Quarters, Ft. Belvoir, Virginia * March 19, 1989 * 6:30 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"You're sure that's what Ludwig said, James?" Alex Reese had the telephone receiver tucked tightly in his shoulder as he took notes from his adjutant in Berlin. "Okay. Get in touch with the Poles and tell then that we'll be there Tuesday noontime. It will be me, my civilian secretaries, my translator, and my aide-de-camp." He smiled as he imagined the young lieutenant thinking that through. "No, sorry, son, not you this time. Lt. Col. Marlowe, two women from the Agency, and a young man from another group that I'm co-opting from here. I'll get names to you later today. Anything else?" There was just a small personnel issue that Reese delegated to Johnston before he signed off, one that made the young man feel much better about his absence from the Polish delegation.  
  
Amanda will be thrilled. Billy will be furious. I wonder how Ian and Francine will feel?  
  
British Airways International Departure Lounge * 6:45 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"Amanda, I'll be fine." Lee Stetson hated saying good-bye anyway; this was the worst ever. Amanda was crying.  
  
"But how do you know that? Who's got your back?" she asked through her sniffles.  
  
He really didn't have an adequate answer to either of those questions, except his unshakeable faith that simply having Amanda to come home to was enough. So he just took her in his arms and held her for as long as he could before his flight to London was called.  
  
He looked back as long as he could while he made his way down the jet way to the people mover, then set his game face in place. Lee Stetson would stay in London, while Rainer Volkmeister would enter Poland quite legitimately on business from West Germany.  
  
The Olympic Training Facility, Warsaw, Poland * 2:10 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Even the ordinarily unflappable Leon Ivanich Scholk was vocally impressed at the tremendous display of talent shown by the Polish Olympian as he watched Father Milowanowicz desecrate targets at 200 and 300 meters. "You have outdone yourself, Gregor," he complimented his companion. "He's definitely in the wrong profession."  
  
"Meaning?"  
  
"Meaning he should be about killing people, not about saving their non- existent souls."  
  
"I like to think he'll do both on Friday," Borodin replied dryly.  
  
Scholk laughed and revised his opinion of the Pole. Perhaps he would have his uses after this was over. As might Milowanowicz, come to think of it. "I'll make my report, and you can expect final clearance tomorrow as your contact arranged previously. I'll be around just in case there are any late developments."  
  
Milowanowicz came back from the firing line with his last set of targets, 350 meters from the line. Each had a neat circle carved in the middle of it, precisely the diameter of a .306 shell. Considering that he had fired three bullets into each target, that result was unheard of. The priest shrugged when the Russian congratulated him. "It is what I do best," he dismissed the praise. "It is what I do best."  
  
The Agency * 2:15 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
Billy Melrose had a headache of epic proportions.  
  
First of all, he was in the office on a Sunday on one of his few supposedly completely free weekends after having worked most of the day on Saturday.  
  
Secondly, General Reese had just requisitioned Amanda and Francine for an overseas assignment of dubious worth.  
  
Thirdly, Dr. Smyth had told him to let Amanda and Francine go if he really wanted to add Lt. Col. Marlowe to his staff after the upcoming promotions were announced.  
  
He reached for his bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol and swallowed his third and fourth tablets of the day before he yelled for Francine.  
  
"What is it, Billy? I'm trying to – " Francine stopped her complaint in mid-stream when she saw her section chief's face. "How can I help you?" she said instead.  
  
"By not going with General Reese, but that's a done deal. What's your take on this?"  
  
Francine closed her blue eyes for a second as she thought about the unexpected trip. She didn't know exactly where they were going, just that it was a legitimate cover for a trip behind the Iron Curtain. She had a hunch, though. "We're going wherever Scholk went."  
  
"Which was?" Billy sat back in his chair and closed his eyes, trying to shut out the light.  
  
She shrugged. "We don't know. General Reese has better assets on the ground in most countries than we do."  
  
"Great." He still had his eyes closed, even though it didn't seem to be working. "Call me when you get there."  
  
"Um, Billy, we don't leave until late tomorrow night."  
  
Now he sat up. "I'm taking a month off when this is all over. So are you and Amanda and Lee."  
  
"Oh, I believe that," Francine rebutted, earning a clear non-verbal order to leave.  
  
Billy waited until his agent and friend stood at the door. "Turn the lights out, please. I have a headache."  
  
Gorky Park, Moscow, USSR * 10:00 p.m. (GMT+3)  
  
A lone American stood in the snow under a street light just off the main path through Gorky Park, conspicuous because he wore a red, white and blue parka and a red and white striped scarf with blue fringe. He didn't know that another America also stood behind a tree just off the main path a short ways further into the park, waiting for someone who was not an American to arrive.  
  
The second man saw his appointment strolling toward the bench a few feet in front of the tree and moved out to meet him, inviting the other man to sit down with exaggerated largesse. "You're late," he said, steel behind his jovial tone.  
  
G.A. Tolstoy shrugged it off. "The subway was running a little slow. You called me, and it's cold out here. What do you have?" The steam of their breath rose around them as fog.  
  
"Something I didn't think could wait. An American agent just went into Poland, covered as a businessman from somewhere in Europe. I am trying to find out more, but given the dragnet around the embassy in Washington, I thought you might want to know about this coincidence."  
  
Tolstoy winced at the reminder of the dragnet; the Rezident had been less than happy about that whole incident and had made Tolstoy's day more miserable than Scholk's escape by itself. "Yes, thank you. I think that it is truly coincidence, but we'll keep a watch out."  
  
"I'll do the same for further information." The American rubbed his hands across his parka nervously. "I'm a little worried about this," he hedged. "If you act on this, it may blow my cover."  
  
Georg Alexeivich smiled. "There will be a triple payment in your usual account if you can get the additional information. Meanwhile, the usual will be available tomorrow."  
  
The young American shook his head. "I really am worried about this." Then he thought for a moment. "But I'll try." He walked away, whistling a Tchaikovsky ballet theme.  
  
Warsaw, Poland * 8:35 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Lee Stetson was colder, hungrier, and lonelier than he had ever been in his life. At least that's how he felt, even though he knew objectively that there had been times in his early career when he had been colder, hungrier, and lonelier. That, he told himself, was LS-BA: Lee Stetson – Before Amanda. As he saw things now, LS-AA was so much better off than LS-BA that everything was worse when she wasn't around. And Warsaw was always bad anyway.  
  
Getting into the country had not been as hard as he expected it to be; Poland was courting Western European investors openly these days and his cover as West German businessman Rainer Volkmeister went unchallenged. As Stefan promised, there was "mail" at the primary dead drop from the old network, an advertisement that told him when and where to meet the faithful remnants of his team. Instead of staying for the spicy pierogi being served for dinner at the hotel, Lee went back just long enough to retrieve the "size 44 horse shoes carefully cobbled by Smith and Wesson", then made his way along the 2 kilometers from the Hotel Europejski to the alley that ran between the crumbling walls of the old Jewish cemetery and the Powazkowski Cemetery, where he was to meet his contact in 10 minutes.  
  
He paced, as he was wont to do, until he heard footsteps approaching from the direction of the Vistula River off to the east. With great deliberation, he relaxed and stepped back against the wall of the Catholic cemetery to watch for the recognition signals. There – two deliberate puffs on a lit cigarette, followed by a sequence of four taps on the stone wall with a metal hammer. His primary contact may have died five and a half years ago, but Piotyr had trained his network well.  
  
Lee responded with his own verification – three taps with a stone, then a six second sweep with his flashlight and three more taps with a stone. He approached the other man with careful awareness, every nerve ending alert and ready to break and run should anything interfere.  
  
The other man turned out to be a woman, who made Lee understand in a combination of thickly accented Polish, poor German, and hand signals that he was to follow her to her car. They crept north between the walls, then turned east toward the river and strolled arm-in-arm down Stawki Street past the Umschlagplatz memorial, such as it was. In typical Communist fashion, the residential area that had once been the Warsaw Ghetto was rebuilt after the war to reflect sensible Stalinist humanism. Nothing along these streets, quiet but not deserted in the mid-evening chill, remotely resembled that other "Gesture of Communist Comradeship" – the Palace of Culture. Thank God, Lee thought. Uniform gray was better than gaudy triumphalism.  
  
After about 10 minutes, they came to a church that appeared deserted. The look was deceiving; three sharp raps on a rear door was "Open Sesame" in Polish. The interior of the church reflected the decrepit state of the Polish nation after 40+ years of Communist domination: the ceiling in the sanctuary was falling down in several places and water stains left the remainder mottled. A few dim electric lights cast ominous shadows on the wall and the boarded up windows kept out all light from the outside. However, despite the decay, someone had dusted and swept the space clean, and the air was redolent of sweet incense.  
  
"Welcome, Scarecrow," a deep male voice said from the shadows as Lee stepped further into the interior. "It is nice to have you back in Poland."  
  
"Piotyr?" Lee's voice betrayed his surprise.  
  
"Raised from the dead, as it were." The man limped into the light and stretched out his hand to the American. "I go by Stefan now."  
  
Lee looked at his Polish friend, realizing that he would never have recognized the man on the street. The once handsome face bore an ugly, jagged scar from its left eye to the corner of the painfully pale lips on the same side; hair that had been thick and blond and wavy now lay shorn close to his scalp and showed more white than yellow in the murky light. The fire fight at the border crossing, while not fatal, had been life- altering for the Polish activist. "I'm very glad to see you, whatever your current name. I was worried about a trap when the network became active again without warning."  
  
Stefan nodded to the woman who had escorted Lee to the church, and to the three people with him. They departed the church by separate entrances, leaving Lee alone with the man who had once been his best contact and source behind the Iron Curtain. "I could not risk any more than I did. We just had to pray that the pieces fell into place."  
  
"Unfortunately, the KGB snatched your courier, but you picked a very good one. She could be a real pro some day." He handed the Pole the package without comment.  
  
"Yes, the woman at Auschwitz. I never learned her name." Stefan opened the package and nodded once in gratitude as he looked at the pistols he so urgently needed.  
  
Lee thought for a moment. "Let's just say that she's got a father in high places who made life difficult for us until we got her back alive." He shrugged. "So, the microdot simply said that there was an assassination plot in motion." Time for brass tacks.  
  
Stefan returned the shrug. "That's all we know for sure. When Gorbachev purged the leadership last September, we, too, suffered. Many of our sympathetic comrades were transferred back to Moscow or retired to the Black Sea."  
  
"What do you hope I can do?"  
  
The Pole laughed. "Frankly, my friend, we didn't expect you to come in person. Now that you are here, perhaps we can make something of your cover."  
  
"How so?"  
  
Stefan outlined a plan that was so audacious in its simplicity that Lee staggered out of the church 45 minutes later. He had a lot to do overnight to be ready for his act in the morning.  
  
Interior Ministry Offices, Warsaw, Poland * March 20, 1989 * 9:15 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
"Good morning, Comrade Borodin. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice." Lee Stetson stood before the desk of a functionary at the Interior Ministry. His Polish, which he tried to keep German-accented, was passable enough for greetings but not for transacting business – at least according to his cover.  
  
"You are quite welcome, Herr Volkmeister. Your call was most propitious."  
  
Lee looked at the man with a sheepish grimace. "Sprechen sie Deutsch?"  
  
Gregor Borodin smiled. "Jawohl." He rose from the desk and strode to the door, closed it with firm authority. When he sat back down, he continued in German. "You said you had information for me. May I ask what it is?"  
  
Reaching down to his portfolio case, Lee pulled out a folder of neatly typed papers. "This is a summary of information my company has put together over the last several weeks from various sources within Poland. My colleagues and I decided that the big picture is ominous enough to warrant bringing this to you."  
  
"Your 'sources'?" Borodin tapped the sheaf of papers with a skeptical frown as he willed himself to be calm.  
  
"Not to be revealed, naturally."  
  
"Just what is it that Heiß Kreideintelligent does?"  
  
The name, essentially a nonsense phrase made of the words hot, chalk, and intelligent, lent itself to various interpretations. For this purpose, the Intelligent played the key part. "We are in the information collection and dissemination business," Lee said. "Perhaps thinking of us as information brokers is the best way to proceed."  
  
"Perhaps," the Polish official acknowledged. "So, what do you have that makes an 'ominous' big picture?"  
  
Lee laid out the meager information collected by Stefan's network, adding a few invented pieces here and there to fill out a plausible picture of an impending assassination attempt on a public figure.  
  
"So you think that all of these disparate pieces – from an order for a rifle made to the exact specifications as that used by an Olympic champion to a Polish Forestry Ministry report on unexplained damage to trees in the forest outside Lublin – fit together to make a conspiracy." Borodin shook his head to hide the shake he felt inside. "Far fetched, at best. I will take it to my superiors, of course. Perhaps they have more pieces to plug in."  
  
"I hope so. The champion's name, by the way, was Jaruslav Milowanowicz."  
  
"Well, then I can assure you that there is no plot. He became a priest and serves on the Cardinal's staff at the Cathedral here in Warsaw."  
  
"What would he want now with a competition rifle?" This was a legitimate question; Stefan's network either hadn't known or hadn't found it relevant that Milowanowicz was a priest.  
  
Borodin shrugged. "It isn't unheard of for people to hunt for food or sport in Poland, Herr Volkmeister. That's how Father Jaruslav became a rifleman to begin with, after all." He sat back with the air of a man confident and at ease. "Besides, I myself have a reasonably new Milowanowicz competition rifle for my hunting. They were very popular after the Olympics, and this is my second one – I just gave the old one to my son two years ago. Maybe another father is doing the same."  
  
"Perhaps," Lee allowed. "Well, if you have no other questions, I'll be on my way." He stood and offered his hand to the Pole behind the desk.  
  
"Thank you, Herr Volkmeister. You'll be staying at the Europejski until…?"  
  
"My business visa allows me to stay as long as three weeks; I have several other deals pending during the next week. I hope to return home for Easter at the weekend, of course." That was an understatement.  
  
"No doubt. We'll be in touch if we need more information." Even Borodin wondered just who the "we" in "we'll be in touch" would be, but he gave nothing away to the man across the desk.  
  
Lee strolled out of the typical gray concrete building feeling as though he had just wasted an hour of his time. Except that perhaps a visit to Father Milowanowicz might be in order, he thought as he made his way through the bright late winter day to while away time before his evening meeting with Stefan.  
  
Warsaw, Poland * 2:50 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Gregor Borodin jumped when the phone on his desk rang. He knew who it was and what it signified; that did not make him happy. "Interior Ministry," he answered.  
  
"Can you tell me if the Holy Friday Mass in Castle Square has been authorized this year?" asked a voice he recognized as Pavel Igorovich Gogol's; he did not know G.A. Tolstoy was Gogol or he would have been far more impressed with the level of attention this whole matter attracted.  
  
"We have authorized the Cardinal to preside at a service of Tenebrae at noon," he replied, the truthful answer.  
  
"No mass?" The authorization to proceed.  
  
"I am told that Mass is not celebrated on Holy Friday or Holy Saturday." Confirmation, and truth as well.  
  
"Thank you," the voice said, and hung up.  
  
Gregor looked at the phone with disgust before he roused himself enough to call their Judas Iscariot. It was time to ask what form his 30 pieces of silver would take.  
  
Five minutes later, Borodin realized that he had not reported the West German's information. Far too many pieces of the puzzle had been put together by the other side, and it was time to make sure that no more were assembled before Friday at noon.  
  
Warsaw, Poland * 7:30 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
"Scarecrow, you're wearing a hole in my nicely refurbished marble floor," Stefan – f/k/a/ Piotyr – whined with great irony as the American agent paced a track around the dilapidated plywood floor the disused church. "Are you charging your batteries or is this how that vaunted brain of yours works?"  
  
Lee stopped where he was, across the murky room from the Pole, and stuck his tongue out at the courageous subversive.  
  
Stefan laughed. "Is there another child you aren't telling me about, perhaps a three year old?"  
  
Despite himself, Lee chuckled and relaxed a little bit. "Did you hear anything about the chemical attacks in Israel in January?"  
  
"A bit," the other man nodded. "I seem to recall a kidnapping involving a teenager and a mother and child of about three, as well."  
  
"My son Jamie and a delightful little girl named Marlena, along with Marlena's mother. Marlena lived with us while her mother recovered from her very serious injuries."  
  
"I think I'd like to meet your family someday, Lee. Your Amanda sounds as though she has a heart large enough for the world."  
  
"She has a heart big enough for the universe with room to spare, and an intellect just as grand. And she'd probably be telling me to sit down just about now, too."  
  
"She's a wise woman, then. Okay, have you figured out any more since you started your wretched trip to nowhere?"  
  
Lee shrugged and resumed his pacing, more slowly this time. "The flashing neon light in my head is still aimed directly at Father Milowanowicz. When I went to the Chancery this afternoon, I was treated less than enthusiastically, even though I went pretending to be a sports writer following up on past Olympic champions."  
  
Stefan shook his head. "Stetson, I don't know whether to admire your audacity or curse your stupidity. They wouldn't let you in under that cover without a pass from the Sports Ministry."  
  
Lee stopped again, his face brightening to red in the faded light. "Oh, man. That was a rookie mistake."  
  
"Or one of an overconfident agent." Stefan's tone indicated both concern and admonishment. "You didn't consult your wife's instincts, did you?"  
  
Shaking his head, the American sank into a nearby pew. "I hate working alone. When I'm with Amanda, all it takes is a look or a gesture to get her read on a situation – and she's so much better than I am now that I've forgotten how to do it on my own."  
  
"You'd better learn fast, my friend." Stefan came and stood in front of him. "You never know who might learn about your indiscretion this afternoon."  
  
The dank, frigid sanctuary turned bitterly cold with that pronouncement.  
  
Maplewood Drive, Arlington, Virginia * 7:15 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"Amanda, honey, you look beat," Dotty West commented as her daughter staggered through the back door. She took out another mug and placed a tea bag in it as the kettle started to whistle.  
  
"I am beat, Mother." Amanda struggled to the sofa and sat down heavily. "Work is always so much harder when Lee is away."  
  
Dotty brought both cups of tea into the living room and sat down on the couch beside her weary child. "Do you know when he'll be back?" It drove her crazy not to know where her son-in-law was, but she knew better than to ask.  
  
Amanda sighed and took a mug from her mother. "Before Sunday, but when exactly, I don't know. He'll probably call from the airport." Half the brew in the cup disappeared in one long swallow.  
  
"You have that look like there's something you should be telling me."  
  
Amanda was so tired she didn't even bother to contradict her mother. "Yes, I do. It won't matter too much logistically here, but I'm leaving on assignment tonight."  
  
"When did you find out?" Dotty swallowed the contents of her mug in a long pull as she waited for her daughter's answer.  
  
"About an hour ago," she fibbed, not wanting to tell her mother any details. "A car is coming for me at 10, so I need to pack and shower before then."  
  
Dotty West sighed and then smiled. "Do you remember how to shower alone?"  
  
"Mother!" Amanda flushed scarlet.  
  
"Caught you." She reached over to pat Amanda's hand. "I was just going to go shower myself. Kurt wants to take me to Vermont to go skiing tomorrow, but he wants to go out tonight."  
  
"One room or two?"  
  
This time, Dotty blushed.  
  
"Uh huh," Amanda winked. "Gee, not a single one of us around this week, what with the boys in Colorado with Joe for spring break. Who would have thought?"  
  
"Just be home for Easter." Dotty's request had the authority of an order from the high command.  
  
KGB Headquarters, Moscow, USSR * March 21, 1989 * 8:05 a.m. (GMT+3)  
  
Feodor Petrovich Kaminsky didn't really like to journey into the KGB headquarters building in Dzerzhinsky Square now that he was "retired", but he had been doing it an awful lot of late. With plans afoot in Poland and pots bubbling in East Germany and Romania, he needed to be seen as a doddering old fool written off to innocuous obscurity, and there was no better way to do that than to wander the halls aimlessly. Whatever the abilities of the KGB in the outside world, it was notoriously accepting of the appearances of its own ranks. Hence the act once again as he made his way slowly through the halls toward G.A. Tolstoy's office.  
  
Tolstoy sat behind his desk in his dank office, chain smoking vile Russian cigarettes as he leafed through a yellowed, crackling sheaf of papers. "Make it quick," he growled without looking up.  
  
"I shall," Kaminsky replied with a smile, wondering what his former underling's response would be. He sat down in the disintegrating chair facing the office's primary occupant.  
  
Tolstoy grimaced and muttered an apology before he looked up. "You are looking for news?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Well, to start with, an American agent, identity unconfirmed at this time, is known to be in Warsaw as of Sunday night. We believe that he is to make contact with a dissident cell, but we haven't found him yet. Then there's the overconfident Scholk. Miss Reese is now in intensive care at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center in Baltimore. Scholk is in Poland and reports that all is ready. Even he is impressed with Milowanowicz."  
  
Kaminsky sighed. "Well, it could be worse, I suppose, Georg Alexeivich. How was Scholk discovered?  
  
"I'm not sure. He wasn't really that forthcoming with the details. I do know that there was a rather airtight dragnet around the Embassy early Saturday morning."  
  
"He was unlucky and cocky, a bad combination." He turned his head when footsteps approached in the hall way. "Forgive me if I am nattering like an old woman these days."  
  
Tolstoy eyed the older man with humor. "You want people to think you're an 'old woman'. No one will suspect a foolish old man stripped of his power of being behind the most daring attempt to save our country yet seen."  
  
"That is my hope," Feodor Petrovich nodded, a skeletal grin settling on his sharp features.  
  
Tolstoy shivered. He knew the events planned were necessary, but that didn't mean he had to like them. "And if it doesn't work?"  
  
"What have we to lose? We've already lost our status. If our country does fall, those we now count as enemies will fall with it, so we gain even in the loss. If it works… well, my friend, if it works, your office will be moving."  
  
Mouth agape, Tolstoy fished for a response as he thought through the implications of the promise. A seat on the Politburo? A ministry position, maybe even Minister of State Security? There weren't too many positions available above his current position in the Covert Action Directorate. "That is very generous of you, Comrade Kaminsky. Let us hope that success is imminent."  
  
"Indeed." Kaminsky read Tolstoy's thoughts easily. Yes, my friend. Perhaps even Minister of State Security. But first, we must have tremendous luck in Poland. Only then can we make our move here.  
  
Warsaw, Poland * 7:15 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
"Somebody knows something," Borodin whispered to his intermediate contact as they stood in line at a bakery near the Interior Ministry.  
  
"When did you find this out?" the man whispered back.  
  
"Yesterday."  
  
"Why didn't you call?" The volume crept up a notch.  
  
Gregor's face reddened but he kept his voice under control. "I did. Starting at 3:00 yesterday afternoon until I reached you earlier. You said the number was always monitored."  
  
The contact from Moscow shrugged. "You know how the phones work in Poland. What information and who is it who knows?"  
  
Borodin filled in the details and gave the Russian the information about Herr Volkmeister's stay in Poland. "What should we do?"  
  
"You should go on with business."  
  
"What about the West German?" This time, his voice did rise a half octave.  
  
A chilling smile slithered across the other man's face. "Oh, I'm sure you can figure that out."  
  
American Airlines Flight 108 * Over Greenland * 3:20 a.m. (GMT-3)  
  
Amanda envied Ian and Francine. The couple sat across the aisle from her in first class, arms wrapped snugly around each other and heads together as they slept their way across the Atlantic. She'd be doing the same thing if Lee were with her.  
  
"Penny for your thoughts," Alex Reese said above her as he stood to stretch in the row ahead of her.  
  
She smiled, allowing her fears to show in the wan attempt. "Lee."  
  
"I thought so." He looked down at the seat beside him. "Kevin seems to have the same idea as Francine and Ian. May I?" The general indicated the empty seat next to her.  
  
"Sure." She waited until he was seated and safely belted in before she continued the conversation. "What's keeping you up?"  
  
Alex sighed. "Sandra. Lee. Scholk. The Red Sox."  
  
Amanda couldn't suppress a laugh. "The Red Sox?"  
  
"Of course. I haven't slept since game 6 of the '86 World Series." He watched as the smile became more genuine. "That's better. Your husband was right."  
  
"About what?"  
  
"Your public smile. It lights a city block. I wonder what the one you save just for him lights?"  
  
Blushing furiously, Amanda stuttered a denial, but the older man cut her off. "Don't worry, Amanda. I'm not making any moves on you. It's just that I see you and Lee together and think about what I've lost in my life. And it's all Scholk's fault." A moment passed before he could speak again. "Eleven years, Amanda. And this was the third strike. He's out."  
  
Amanda suppressed a shudder. Now she knew what Lee's face must have looked like when he took on Adi Birol to get her back.  
  
KGB Headquarters, Moscow, USSR * 11:10 a.m. (GMT+3)  
  
"Borodin's handler just called in," Tolstoy reported to Kaminsky as the two walked through the halls of the KGB's main office toward the tea room. "Borodin had a very interesting conversation with a West German businessman yesterday. It seems this business man has entirely too much information about our current operation – in fact, it's exactly the information we are afraid the underground got out via Sandra Reese."  
  
"Really?" Kaminsky asked, genuine surprise in his voice. "I would not have thought the Americans would be so obvious."  
  
"We get lucky, sometimes. I've set Scholk to the task of supervising the capture of our guest hopes of getting a lead on the subversive cell he's working with."  
  
"Good." A pause. "Very good."  
  
Warsaw, Poland * 10:00 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Lee stepped out into the sunshine that predicted the beginning of astronomical spring later that day. Behind him, the lobby of the Europejski Hotel was quiet, long-since devoid of the Round Table delegations and not yet crowded by nomenklatura guests coming for Easter weekend masses by the Cardinal. Ahead, the mid-morning traffic of an Eastern European city made its orderly way through the square, busily about the business of keeping a decrepit state running just a little longer. Warsaw wouldn't be a bad place to live, he thought, if it hadn't been for the Communists and the Nazis before them.  
  
He set out across the street to return to the Interior Ministry by way of an appointment with Stefan at a little bakery in Castle Square. He saw the usual tails and made no effort to evade them, knowing that evasion cast more suspicion than desired. They had left him alone since he arrived, apparently content that he could do no harm during non-business hours – and since he had evaded them the night he met Stefan, that was somewhat surprising to the veteran American agent.  
  
His Polish contact made no notice of Lee when the married man strolled into the bakery; as all the tables were occupied, it made sense for Lee to take the empty seat across from Stefan after he paid for his coffee and roll.  
  
Stefan looked up briefly from his newspaper, the "international" version of Pravda, and made passing eye contact with Lee. They didn't speak. A few minutes later, Stefan rose and departed the bakery, leaving the paper behind. Lee picked it up and spent a few moments glancing through it, then tucked it under his arm and followed Stefan.  
  
The tails were still there, Lee noted. He had no way of seeing the man with the clipboard ahead of him who casually stuck his arm out, grazing the back of Lee's hand with a ballpoint pen as the American walked by. Moments later, Lee staggered against the stone wall of an old building, dizzy and breathless.  
  
A passing police officer caught him before he could fall to the ground.  
  
Central Amy Command, Warsaw, Poland * 2:30 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Enemies or not, the Polish Chief of Military Intelligence was a funny man who had much in common with the head of the Joint Intelligence Command, and General Reese was man enough to say so as he returned the firm handshake of his host at the headquarters of the Polish army. The two men had known each other since they met as young junior officers at a NATO/Warsaw Pact negotiation 25 years before, and over the years theirs had been a friendship hampered by politics rather than any personal issues.  
  
"Ah, Sasha, my friend, you haven't changed!" Leszek Wroebel pummeled the American's back as he pulled Reese into a bear hug. The man's English was accented with a flat New England tone – one strangely reminiscent of General Reese's.  
  
Amanda and Francine stared at the display; Ian had seen it before, as had Kevin Reese, so they just grinned. Ian had once said to Kevin that the Pole and the American would have been best beer buddies under other circumstances.  
  
Wroebel was no slouch in the memory department. "Maj – oh, Lieutenant Colonel Marlowe! How nice to see you again," he said as he took notice of the remaining Americans behind their leader. "And Kevin, you have changed just a bit."  
  
The lanky young man returned the Pole's infectious smile and nodded. "It's been 6 years, General Wroebel."  
  
"Has it? My, I suppose it has. Of course, I see your father once a year or so. And these lovely ladies are?"  
  
"Francis Delaney and Amara Kane. Miss Delaney is my junior secretary, Miss Kane is my senior secretary, and Kevin will be my translator while I'm here. The colonel is, of course, my aide-de-camp."  
  
Amanda had to admit that she was impressed with what she saw on the tour through the military complex – it was far more than she would have thought Americans would be allowed to see. Of course, she thought, it could all be a Potempkin's Village, too, and she said as much to General Reese later.  
  
Reese shook his head and turned on a miniature white noise generator hidden in the insignia on his collar. "Not here, even with this," he said as quietly as he could. "I will tell you that Wroebel confirmed Scholk's presence here in Poland."  
  
Amanda's eyes went wide as she worked out the ramifications of his statement.  
  
"Yes," was all General Reese said to the realization that came to her knowing brown orbs.  
  
In Line for Lenin's Tomb, Moscow, USSR * 2:50 p.m. (GMT+3)  
  
Tolstoy's American smiled and acted like a typical American oaf as he spoke with the Russian agent. "The man in Poland is Lee Stetson, codename Scarecrow."  
  
"You're sure?"  
  
"Positive."  
  
"Tomorrow, then."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
Police Headquarters, Warsaw, Poland * 4:05 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
The clinic was like any other well-maintained clinic in Eastern Europe – about 10 years out of date and strongly infused with the smell of disinfectant. The cot was granite underneath him as Lee struggled to sit up. He looked around him at the institutional green tiles and wondered out loud – in German, he remembered almost too late - where he was.  
  
"Oh, Herr Volkmeister," a voice beside him replied in German, "you're at the Warsaw Police Headquarters. You seemed to pass out on the street and one of our police officers brought you here."  
  
It wasn't quite the truth, Lee thought vaguely, but since he couldn't be more specific, he didn't press the issue. "Am I okay?"  
  
"You seem to be," the same soothing voice said, its owner coming into view as he leaned over to look into the American's eyes. "I thought it would be better to leave you here than to trust you to the state hospital. We've told the German mission that you're here for health reasons and that we could care for you adequately without hospitalization."  
  
"May I leave?"  
  
"I think so. Let me get the doctor." The man stood and left the room for a moment; when he returned, another man came with him, moving with brisk efficiency toward the patient.  
  
"Any aches or pains?" the second man asked Lee as he poked and prodded the agent's various extremities. He pulled out a blood pressure cuff and wrapped it too tightly around the American's arm.  
  
Lee winced. "A slight headache. Do you know what happened?"  
  
From the look on the doctor's face, he knew but wouldn't say. "Food poisoning," he declared, pulling a stethoscope down from his ears.  
  
A noise from the doorway drew the three men's attention. "I'm sorry to interrupt," Gregor Borodin said, "but I need to speak with Herr Volkmeister as soon as you've cleared him." Borodin flashed an Interior Ministry badge.  
  
"He's free to go," the doctor nodded, pocketing the stethoscope. He motioned for the first man to follow him and left the room and, from the sound of a closing door a few seconds later, the clinic.  
  
"Come, let's get you back to your hotel," the remaining Pole said. "We can talk there." Borodin escorted Lee outside to a waiting car and helped the taller man into it. He moved around to the driver's side, got in, and started the car. He pulled the car out into traffic and headed east toward the Vistula River.  
  
The pair crossed the river. Borodin then looked at the American, whose expression showed both curiosity and confusion. "You were lucky, Herr Volkmeister."  
  
"Why? And why aren't you taking me back to the hotel?"  
  
"Because the police caught you when you fell." He smiled ghoulishly. "That wasn't how it was supposed to happen."  
  
This time, Lee saw the needle before it penetrated his arm.  
  
The Agency Field Office, Munich, West Germany * 4:35 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
"That was strange," the lead agent said to his associate as he hung up the phone on his desk. "The West German Passport office just called to say that a Rainer Volkmeister of Heiß Kreideintelligent was treated and released by the Warsaw Police for food poisoning."  
  
"You know, your German isn't absolutely fluent. Are you sure that's what they said?  
  
"Positive. She said it in English."  
  
They traded looks; at length, the lead agent sighed and made a decision. "Add it to the report to Washington for tonight's status meeting." 


	7. The crowing of the cock

DISCLAIMER: If you recognize people or organizations from the television series, they belong to Shoot the Moon Productions and Warner Brothers. I've borrowed them with love and deep appreciation for the many years of enjoyment I've received from them and am making absolutely no money from this enterprise. If you recognize them from history, no infringement is intended on them; they merely serve to provide the story with an authentic setting. If you don't recognize them from either of those two sources, they're products of my very odd imagination and I claim full responsibility for their imaginary actions.  
  
Chapter 7 * Warsaw, Poland * 7:35 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
"Herr Volkmeister, if that is who you really are, please don't insult our intelligence by claiming you were simply doing your duty in telling the Interior Ministry about this so-called threat to the leaders of our country." Leon Ivanich Scholk was thrilled to have this man in his power. He knew exactly who Volkmeister really was before the confirmation call from Tolstoy, and now it was payback time for many reasons.  
  
"It's the truth," Lee persisted through the excruciating pain in his head. No other part of his body hurt – at least that's what he thought, but it could have been that his head hurt so much that any other pain was insignificant in comparison.  
  
"I doubt it But we will get to the bottom of this, because what you have stumbled onto is far more important than the life of one Western idiot."  
  
"Really?"  
  
Scholk struck his open palm with the clenched fist of his other hand, causing a reverberating thump inside Lee's throbbing skull. "Yes, Herr Volkmeister. Much, much more important."  
  
Police Headquarters, Warsaw, Poland * 9:00 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
"What do you mean, 'I lost him!'? How do you lose a human being? Especially a West German!" The police chief's usually florid face had an even angrier hue as he screamed at the doctor in front of him. "I told you to make sure Mr. Volkmeister returned to his hotel safely!"  
  
"Yes, sir, you did, and well, sir, we were going to do that, but then a man from the Interior Ministry came in and said he had some questions. We thought he would take the German with him, so…"  
  
"So you thought that you were off the hook. You aren't – because the Interior Ministry never heard of any Rainer Volkmeister. The man who came in really is one of them, but he appears to be working without their knowledge, which points in exactly one direction."  
  
The doctor's eyes widened. "Moscow. That would explain the drugs in his system."  
  
"Drugs?"  
  
A little while later, the Warsaw Police went to high alert and the Interior Ministry began an internal investigation on Gregor Borodin. Even behind the Iron Curtain, those working for Moscow weren't always welcome with open arms.  
  
The Agency * 4:30 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
50 hours had passed, but Billy still had a splitting headache. Now, in addition to the second shift of agents out with their children on spring break, his three best agents were out of the country. Granted, they were away – or at least one of them was – dealing with a legitimate threat. The other two, well…  
  
He knew that Amanda had gone to Reese to plead her case. He wasn't as upset with that as he perhaps should have been, because it meant that Lee's back was covered by the one person in the world who knew him better than he knew himself. Francine had gone because Ian had gone, and Ian was still technically an adjunct member of Reese's staff. Why Reese had gone to Europe – really gone, that is – remained somewhat of a mystery. And it seemed that Reese's son Kevin, an Eastern European analyst at the National Security Administration, had requested personal leave and gone with his father.  
  
This had all the earmarks of a colossal firestorm awaiting the fatal spark.  
  
The status meeting didn't go well from the beginning. The Soviets had lodged an official protest about the dragnet over the weekend, despite the fact that no one was caught in it – not even the intended target, Scholk. An operative was dead in South America because an agent from another intelligence group had sold out to one of the major drug cartels. And Rainer Volkmeister had been reported as ill to the West German mission in Warsaw, which then passed that information along to the Agency field office in Munich, which casually mentioned it in their report. Lee Stetson fallen ill while under deep cover was not in the plans.  
  
If there was another shoe to be dropped, Billy didn't want to know about it anytime soon.  
  
But it fell before he could go home for the day.  
  
"SCHOLK IS IN POLAND?"  
  
The bullpen fell silent as Billy's rage erupted from his office in fragments of sentences. "Is that why you stole my ag – " "You know and you didn't tell me." "I do understand the concept of need to know… I think I needed to know this earlier." "Oh." "I see." "Yes, that does put all this in a completely new light." "Have you met up with Lee yet?" "His cover has been tagged – apparently he got sick …" The conversation faded as Billy began to get more pieces of the puzzle from General Reese.  
  
His headache still throbbed when he left that night, but at least now there were several good reasons for it that had nothing to do with budget issues.  
  
Johns Hopkins University Medical Center, Baltimore, Maryland * 8:10 p.m. EST (GMT+5)  
  
Lieutenant James Johnston felt strange just sitting in the Intensive Care Unit rather than taking decisive action as 4 years at the United States Naval Academy had taught him to do. Like most people, he hated hospitals. He also felt strange in civilian clothes, but his commanding officer had told him in no uncertain terms that he was not to wear his uniform on this particular assignment. Since that man had more than just career influence in his life, James was wont to follow those orders, for unlike most men, he had the father and brother of the woman he loved completely on his side.  
  
Sandra looked so small and ghostly against the white sheets of her hospital bed, underneath the many leads and tubes which told the doctors that she was still alive, even if unconscious. James could do nothing but hold her hand and pray for her, and for her father and brother as they chased down the family demon together.  
  
Izabelin, Poland * March 22, 1989 * 4:35 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Lee Stetson had exactly two things on his mind: escape and Amanda. Amanda was normal, and had been for almost 5 ½ years. Escape, well, that wasn't normal, but it wasn't exactly unusual, either. His captor - no surprise that Scholk would be among the 93% of smart criminals in the world - had firmly bound his arms and wrists behind him at his trim waist with what felt like strong marine rope and there were only knots, no locks. He was also bound at the feet, although there seemed to be some play in the line there when he moved his legs back and forth. The bigger, more immediate problem was his position on the floor; he lay on his side facing a blackened wooden wall, penned on the other side by a heavy object he couldn't see. Any work he did would have to be performed within that very cramped space, as he couldn't maneuver himself upright between the wall and the object.  
  
He had no idea how much time passed as he struggled with the ropes at his feet; eventually the lines gave a bit and he found himself able to use his legs to push against the object at his back. Infinitesimally but inexorably, the thing moved; he inched himself downward as the space below his waist opened up and soon used his bound but more mobile legs to leverage himself into a sitting position.  
  
"Lovely," Lee mumbled to himself as he surveyed the rest of his cell; what little light there was came from cracks near the ceiling between the warped boards of the walls and in the gray murk he could see no door, though he knew there had to be one. Then he looked around again as his eyes became more focused; there was no door, after all. He looked up to see the bleak sameness of the ceiling, broken only by a square frame of slightly lighter color built into the far corner of the room. "I hate efficient kidnappers. They threw me in a potato cellar!" he muttered under his breath as he continued his efforts to free himself.  
  
The heavy object proved to be a sturdy storage cabinet, which Lee moved inch by inch across the cellar with his knees and lower legs. All the while, he worried at the knots in the ropes binding his hands and willed himself to think in German, lest he be surprised by the appearance of Gregor Borodin, or worse, Scholk. He thought of Amanda and wished for her presence as he fought the lines behind his back; she had such a knack for the Houdini acts often needed in the spy business…  
  
Noises from the room above sent Lee scurrying back to the corner, well out of what he thought would be the line of sight from the cellar access. The cabinet hadn't moved so much that it would be obviously in a different position at first glance, so it would, he thought, be okay.  
  
Sure enough, the glance sent down into the confined space by the guard or whomever was at best cursory, and after several minutes of silence from the outside world, Lee resumed his efforts at room redecoration. As he did so, he focused his thoughts on his wife, praying that he could once again access that mysterious connection that existed between them.  
  
Guest Officers' Quarters, Central Army Command, Warsaw * 5:43 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
"Lee!" Amanda sat straight up in the unfamiliar bed, sure that her beloved husband was beside her. The narrow cot mocked that conviction; moaning, she laid back against the still-warm pillows and closed her eyes to the tears that formed in her cocoa brown orbs.  
  
"Amanda…." Lee's voice, clear but faint in the depths of her mind. "Amanda… I need your help…"  
  
She knew. Beyond all comprehension and explanation, she knew what was happening. Giving herself over to the mystery, she focused and replied with all the love in her heart. "I'm here. Tell me what you need."  
  
As she processed the experience later, Amanda realized that she really got only brief glimpses of images, but at the time it seemed as though Lee spoke to her in a continuous stream of information. A building she couldn't place that he said was the Interior Ministry; a name – Jaruslav – and a church, but not one she could identify; a rifle; the Olympic rings; Castle Square in Warsaw; Jaruzelski, Walesa, and a Roman Catholic cardinal that she knew to be Josef Cardinal Glemp; a dimly lit cellar. She had the sense that Lee couldn't completely separate what he knew from what he had been exposed to in Warsaw because the soundtrack came with apologies for the political faces thrown in. The last face she saw before the vision faded left her wide-awake and shivering in the early morning light.  
  
Leon Ivanich Scholk.  
  
Near the Kremlin * Moscow, USSR * 7:50 a.m. (GMT+3)  
  
G.A. Tolstoy couldn't decide whether to be alarmed or relieved as he reported the latest developments to Feodor Petrovich Kaminsky. Either way, he decided to enjoy the taste of the imported French coffee Kaminsky served with the full breakfast spread of smoked meats, fresh imported croissants, premium butter, and Smucker's Strawberry Jam. Especially the jam.  
  
"Let's recap what's happened thus far. We get Leon Ivanich safely out of reach of the Americans, but we failed to keep the microdot out of their hands and thus they know something is going on, but hopefully not exactly what." Kaminsky made his statement as Tolstoy lathered butter on a slice of the feathery light roll.  
  
Georg Alexeivich scowled as he put two heaping spoons of the glistening crimson fruit spread on top of the butter. "Yes and no. Don't forget that Borodin reported that the West German knew enough to be a threat. However, Scholk reported that he has captured that same West German, who is really American agent with the code name 'Scarecrow'." He grinned with ghoulish pleasure. "And my American contact confirmed earlier via a routine drop that Scarecrow is Lee Stetson and that he is, indeed, the man in Poland."  
  
Feodor Petrovich glanced up in alarm. "Stetson?"  
  
"So it would appear."  
  
The older man sipped his coffee for a long moment before he continued. "Do we know the whereabouts of his partner?"  
  
"Uh… no, not exactly."  
  
"What do you mean, not exactly?"  
  
"Well, there is something confusing happening in Poland – "  
  
"That's why we're doing what we're doing."  
  
"No, I mean something beyond that. We've been shut out of the internal military intelligence network."  
  
"Wroebel?"  
  
"One and the same."  
  
"I warned them. I've been warning them for years and years. But they didn't listen. Damned GRU." He bit into a piece of bread, chewed and swallowed without attention to the taste. "So, Wroebel has shut us out, but what does that have to do with the whereabouts of the Scarecrow's partner?"  
  
"We think she's in Poland."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"It gets worse."  
  
"How can it?" Kaminsky snorted. "Wait, I'm sure I don't want to know."  
  
Tolstoy told him anyway.  
  
"Bozhe moi." For a Communist, he'd been saying that a lot lately.  
  
Warsaw, Poland * 7:30 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Stefan limped his way toward the café near the Hotel Europejski, keeping his eyes moving in hopes of seeing Lee Stetson as the American made his way toward their meet. The Pole was a bit worried about Stetson after his neophyte mistake on Monday. With only two days before what Stefan took to be the most likely time to try an assassination –Good Friday – time was running out on his underground cell's efforts to stop it, and he needed his old contact in best form.  
  
Half an hour later, he needed his contact in whatever form he could get him. Stetson hadn't shown.  
  
Seriously concerned, the Polish man limped back to his flat and made a life- or-death decision. He turned on the radio transmitter inside his own apartment and prayed that the Communist regime would have its attention elsewhere while he tried to contact the Americans across a continent and an ocean.  
  
Central Army Command, Warsaw, Poland * 8:20 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
"This is our communications area, which you can't enter for obvious reasons of national security, but which as you can see is very busy this morning." General Wroebel was in his element, showing off his army and his patriotism together. "I will confirm for you that the Russians were unhappy about our recent purchase of equipment from Japan…"  
  
"They don't like the loss of income?" Francine asked.  
  
"That too, but they're afraid we'll become too independent." He laughed, inviting the Americans to join him.  
  
A Senior Staff Sergeant approached the Pole and handed him a slip of paper. Wroebel sighed and took a pen from the enlisted man, scribbled a reply, and sent the man on his way.  
  
He moved his guests into another room as innocently as he could and closed the door "Is it safe?" the Eastern Bloc general asked the American general.  
  
Reese nodded and touched his collar, activating the noise generator. Amanda noticed that Wroebel didn't seem the least bit surprised when the gentle hum started.  
  
"We've been monitoring a ham radio transmission for the last thirty minutes. The operator is trying to get through to America – as he did on Saturday." If Wroebel expected a reaction, he was disappointed. "We haven't given our civilian counterparts this information because… well, because I haven't released it. To my ears, it is a lovesick man trying to find his lost love."  
  
Ian's mind whirred at full speed as he thought through what he was seeing and hearing. He kept his counsel, however, until after Wroebel's next pronouncement.  
  
"There is a West German civilian by the name of Rainer Volkmeister missing. Apparently, he was abducted by an official from the Interior Ministry working without knowledge of the ministry. We have a full alert on-going. And he was seen with your Mr. Scholk in a car about 10 kilometers outside the city last night."  
  
"Ludwig," Ian pronounced.  
  
Wroebel grinned while Reese shifted uncomfortably. "In the flesh," the Polish man acknowledged with a flourish.  
  
"Now we have to get you out," the American general groused. "You are so blown."  
  
"Why do you think I invited you?"  
  
"Can we get back to Volkmeister?" Amanda demanded. "I realize that learning the identity of the highest ranking mole in a Soviet Bloc military unit doesn't happen often, but there is a man's life at stake here."  
  
"I won't ask," Wroebel commented, his tone arid. "Volkmeister has disappeared, as I said. The man who took him out of the Warsaw Police Headquarters is Gregor Borodin, whom we now believe was a deep cover KGB mole within the Interior Ministry."  
  
Ian's wry smile took some of the sting out of his words. "The Russians are so paranoid they even spy on their closest allies." He laughed. "Oh, wait, so do we Americans."  
  
"Volkmeister," Amanda demanded again. "How do we find him?"  
  
"I'm afraid that we'll have to wait on the folks from the Interior Ministry to follow Borodin to him."  
  
"General Wroebel, I'm sure that the West Germans would not be happy about that answer if they knew the circumstances," Francine warned, speaking for the first time.  
  
Wroebel shrugged, his unhappiness with the situation clear in his motions. "My government won't tell them the whole story, of course."  
  
Izabelin, Poland * 9:30 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Lee had managed to free himself completely from his bindings and to find a length of iron pipe with which to arm himself. The potato cellar in which he now stood had lightened a bit as the sun shifted around the building, making it a little easier for him to get his bearings. He sat waiting for someone to come, positioned off to the darker side of the room but within striking distance of the stairs that extended down into the room when the ceiling panel opened.  
  
He didn't have long to wait. Heavy footsteps crossed the floor above, steady and sure in their motion toward the opening to the basement. A second, lighter set followed, but to Lee's ears seemed to stop just about where he believed, based on the layout of the exposed floor joists over his head, a wall separated two rooms. That would be Scholk, he thought. The second man could be either the ape who checked on him earlier or Borodin, but Lee laid money on the ape.  
  
When the panel opened, Lee waited for the stairs to descend and for the prison guard to make his way down into the cellar. As the American anticipated, the man rounded the bottom of the stairs into the darker part of the room, and when he did, Lee sprang with vicious speed, knocking the much larger man unconscious with a single, silent blow to the back of his neck.  
  
Unfortunately for Lee at this point, the man had been relying on his overpowering size and strength to keep the prisoner at bay. Lee had thus only the pipe to take as he ascended the steps. He did so as though he were the guard forcing the reluctant prisoner up the stairs on pain of severe injury – a light tread, a heavy tread, a light tread, a heavy tread – until he got to the top. His hope was that Scholk would be expecting his prisoner to still be bound, and that the deception of the stair climbing would further leave the KGB man lulled.  
  
"Ah, Mr. Stetson," Scholk announced as Lee rounded the corner. "So nice to see you."  
  
Thrown for a split second by Scholk's pronouncement of his real name, Lee hesitated before he leapt at the Russian, bringing the pipe around from behind his back with blinding speed to strike at the other man. It almost worked.  
  
Scholk staggered as the pipe clouted his left shoulder with a bone- crunching sound. With his right, the Soviet agent reached for his own weapon, which Lee had time to note was a Smith and Wesson .38 before the first shot was fired.  
  
It went wide of the American, who drove at Scholk's stomach with his chin tucked down against his chest. The impact sent the two men sprawling into the wall behind them while the gun went flying, landing against the wall next to the dining table. A true life-and-death wrestling match began as Lee, who had age and height on his side, and Leon Ivanich, who had a recent meal and weight on his side, struggled for supremacy on the ancient linoleum of a Polish dining room. They tipped chairs over and upended the heavy oak dining table as they thrashed about. The injury to Scholk's shoulder didn't seem to faze him as he finally gained the upper hand and body position over Stetson, pinning him in a full headlock  
  
Lee closed his eyes and let himself go limp as the other man tightened his grip, praying for a moment he could turn to his advantage before Scholk really did send him into the la-la land of unconsciousness or worse. The moment came when the Russian leaned down to say something, loosening his grip around Lee's neck and putting his injured shoulder in a vulnerable position above Lee's own left shoulder. With all the power he could muster, Lee bucked his shoulder and upper body into Scholk's damaged shoulder, slamming the other man backward into the overturned table with a resounding clash of wood and human bone. Scholk slumped, groggy and moaning, while Lee struggled to his feet and made his way warily toward the front door.  
  
Spying the butt of the Smith and Wesson, Scholk made a valiant effort to reach for the pistol, reaching it at the extreme of his extended arm and fingers. He fired as he pulled the gun around, hitting Lee in the lower back, just below his right kidney. The endeavor expended Scholk's remaining will power; he slumped unconscious on the floor as his prisoner tried to make good his escape.  
  
Lee made it as far as the front door before blood loss, stress, and lack of sustenance brought him to his knees – and ultimately to the floor as he slipped into dark oblivion.  
  
The Agency * 3:55 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
Chris Kringle enjoyed the overnight shift. He was the American who got to see what the rest of the world did as it ended its business day or went to work, went to bed or woke up. Most of the time, it was pretty routine stuff, but not this morning.  
  
The European radio team called him over to their boards when a signal came through from England over the short wave monitors. "It's the Wagon Train again. He's calling a stampede."  
  
No, this was definitely not routine. Santa walked the team through the emergency procedures as he picked up the landline and dialed Billy Melrose's home phone number.  
  
Billy and Jeannie Melrose's Home * 4:00 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
Billy's headache was back full force. He listened through the pain as Santa relayed Stefan's information to him, painting a bleak picture of events in Poland. With much trepidation, Billy gave Chris Kringle the contact locations, codes and verifications for Amanda and Francine to pass to the Polish dissident, in hopes that somehow his two other crack agents could find the Scarecrow before time ran out and Poland came crashing down in flames, taking the rest of the world with it.  
  
Central Army Command, Warsaw, Poland * 10:20 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
"Excuse me, General Wroebel. General Reese has an urgent communication coming in from his office in Berlin," the Command Sergeant Major said as the Americans and Wroebel with his executive staff came back onto the communications floor from the conference room where they had been sharing non-compromising information about areas of mutual concern other than Eastern Europe.  
  
Reese understood the man's Polish but waited politely for his friend and agent-in-place to translate before he followed the sergeant to the phone. He waited for Wroebel's subtle signal that the call was private before he spoke to his real secretary. Kevin, Ian, Francine, and Amanda waited with barely concealed concern, thinking that the call was news about Sandra, but the older man waved in relief before his face grew solemn again.  
  
When he completed the short call, he announced to his host that the team needed to leave for a consultation. "You'll join us for lunch, General, perhaps in Old Town?" he asked of Wroebel as the two shook hands.  
  
"Certainly. In Castle Square near the column at noon?"  
  
Plans confirmed, the Americans departed. Reese ordered their driver to take them right into downtown and leave them near the Hotel Europejski, keeping his counsel about the phone call the entire time. Only when the car had sped away did the Army officer gather his team around him, positioning each to cover any angle from which he might be watched as he spoke.  
  
"The message was from Mr. Melrose for Amanda and Francine. The wagon train called in declaring a stampede. You're to go to condition red and check your drops as soon as possible."  
  
"Right," Francine said. "Come on, Ian. We're going shopping." She tugged at his arm, but he resisted.  
  
"Honey, don't you think I stick out just a bit?" he asked, concerned about his Marine Corps dress greens causing unwanted attention.  
  
"Yes, you do. And that's perfect for what I need to do."  
  
Ian acquiesced with an exaggerated shrug and eye roll toward the general, then strolled off arm-in-arm with Francine, following where she led.  
  
"What do we get to do, Mrs. Stetson?" Kevin Reese asked, extending his arm to the beautiful American woman.  
  
Amanda thought for a moment. "We get to be tourists. We can pretend we're a family. Your dad's uniform will give us the same advantage Francine will have with Ian."  
  
Kevin grinned. "Does that mean I can call you 'Mom'?"  
  
Amanda smiled back. "Oh, why not? But for the record, you're adopted."  
  
Alex bowed low to Amanda. "Of course. You're my trophy wife, right?"  
  
The trio laughed for the first time since their arrival in Warsaw as they set off toward the Old City of Warsaw and Amanda's assigned drops.  
  
KGB Headquarters, Moscow, USSR * 12:45 p.m. (GMT+3)  
  
G.A. Tolstoy was mildly concerned that neither Scholk nor Borodin's usual contact had reported in since midnight. He was seriously concerned that the KGB and the GRU had been shut out of the Polish military intelligence network, something that had happened only twice before – in 1971 and in 1981. Both times, militant factions of protestors caused the Soviet Union to clamp down on its northernmost satellite after heads rolled at the top of the intelligence unit.  
  
Perhaps the events occurring now would dovetail nicely with the events slated for Friday and give the world that much more reason to turn a blind eye to the events to follow as Poland became more than a satellite of the Soviet Union.  
  
Izabelin, Poland * 11:05 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Gregor Borodin approached the house with mixed feelings. He didn't like Scholk at all. The man gave him what an American would call the heebie- jeebies. On the other hand, the Russian certainly knew his job. Borodin doubted that the American agent he had helped capture even realized that he had been interrogated under the influence of the drugs in the cocktail from the car the night before. Of course, how much of what the American had said was accurate, Borodin couldn't begin to know – and would probably never find out, anyway.  
  
When he saw the front door standing open, the Polish man froze. A blood trail led down the front steps and onto the sidewalk, but disappeared in the brown grass of the small lawn. The bleeder must have made it into the woods safely, because no body graced the immediate vicinity. With great caution, Borodin made his way up the steps and into the house.  
  
Scholk was just barely conscious, mumbling incoherently about the "damned American" and "mole in Army." Seeing the man's condition, Borodin sprang into action and called the local police station for medical assistance. He also had the presence of mind to hide the revolver and to move the table over to cover the bullet hole in the wall before the constables arrived.  
  
Outside the Same House * 11:10 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Lee Stetson had watched Gregor Borodin enter the building a few minutes ago from the bare safety of the trees. Now, he heard the distinct wailing of European sirens approaching and wanted nothing more than to crawl out to the lawn so the medics – such as they were – would find him and take him to the hospital.  
  
That, however, would undoubtedly be the height of folly at this point, since Borodin would recognize him and was evidently part of whatever conspiracy Scholk was leading, which might or might not have anything at all to do with the supposed assassination attempt. The question then became: how could he extricate himself from this situation in his condition?  
  
Maybe sleep would help, Lee thought as his eyes grew heavy. But he knew that it wasn't sleep coming on; his body, weakened and abused and injured, demanded his energies, and dragged him into unconsciousness.  
  
Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * 12 Noon (GMT+1)  
  
General Wroebel waited with the air of a satisfied man at the base of the column commemorating the triumphant 17th century Polish king Zygmunt III. Wroebel thought of himself as one of Zygmunt's soldiers, fighting for the ideal of Poland as a strong and independent country on the world stage. Twenty five years ago, that belief had made the offer from the then-Captain Alexander Reese to provide information to the West irresistible to the then- Lieutenant Leszek Wroebel. He had started slowly, just one or two reports a year for the first three or four. Then the Prague Spring happened, and at the time he was promoted into a larger role within the Warsaw Pact joint staff command, giving him more access and greater reason to help the Americans. His handler, Reese, was also his friend; they had been posted in three different world capitols simultaneously over their respective careers and the unmarried Wroebel had been adopted by Kevin and Sandra Reese as an uncle – particularly after their mother's death. It didn't hurt that he had been at Sandra's christening and was her godfather. The thought that soon he would be living free in America filled him with joy.  
  
So did the sight of his other, more newly-minted friend, Lieutenant Colonel Marlowe, strolling hand-in-love-intoxicated-hand with Francis Delaney as the couple made their way toward him. Wroebel would bet money that Francis Delaney was a cover name, but that bet – if he even got to make it – wouldn't be collected for at least a year, maybe more.  
  
The two Reeses and Amara Kane followed closely behind Marlowe and his girlfriend. Wroebel wondered idly if there might be a spark between the elder Reese and the lovely but equally pseudonymous Kane, but quickly dismissed that idea when the first words out of Kane's mouth were…  
  
…"Any word on Rainer Volkmeister?"  
  
Leszek Wroebel checked another box off on his mental tally sheet. Volkmeister was an undercover American. "Not directly. But it seems our friend Gregor Borodin called for an ambulance in a little town called Izabelin about 8 kilometers northwest of the city limits."  
  
"Borodin was the one who took Volkmeister from the Warsaw Police," Ian mused. "Then Volkmeister was seen with Leon Scholk. What are the odds…"  
  
"…That Volkmeister, Scholk, and Borodin are – or were – all in the same place?" Kevin Reese finished the thought. "I'd say that there's at least a decent chance. But what about now?"  
  
"We could go find out," the "Kane" woman said with poorly concealed anxiety.  
  
Oh, no, Kane wasn't her real name, and Wroebel decided that she and "Volkmeister" were very seriously involved, perhaps even married. "I'd be willing to let two of you go with one of my most trusted aides," he allowed the Americans. "But only after we eat. We do need to be keeping up appearances, you know."  
  
The beautiful brunette whose name wasn't really Kane only toyed listlessly with her food as the rest of the group enjoyed the meal. Only when Wroebel's adjutant arrived to take the woman and Colonel Marlowe out to Izabelin did she come back to any kind of life. The Polish general decided that he didn't want to be on the receiving end of the wrath in her eyes.  
  
On the Way to Izabelin * 1:20 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Ian had to think hard to keep himself from using Amanda's real name as he talked with her. He was trying to get her focused on something other than her worry for Lee, although he knew if he were in her shoes worrying about Francine, the tactics would work just about as well.  
  
"I know what you're trying to do, Colonel. It won't work."  
  
"Oh, come on, Amara. You've got to know if Francis really has the hots for me," he tried, urging Amanda with his eyes to play even if just for the benefit of the driver and General Wroebel's adjutant in the front seat.  
  
She played, but not with what Ian had become used to as Amanda's usual perky energy. "I'd say that's pretty obvious, Ian. She drools when she talks about you."  
  
That happened to be the truth, but Ian hadn't heard about it before and the revelation sent him into spasms of choked laughter.  
  
Amanda at least smiled at his antics, which was an improvement. The smile disappeared as the car slowed to a stop in front of a small wood-framed house at the end of a dirt road.  
  
"This is the house," Wroebel's adjutant said as he got out of the car to open Amanda's door.  
  
The American woman crept up the cracked cement walkway, pausing every few feet to listen to the sounds around her. Just as she reached the front steps, something caught her attention and she motioned for Ian and the other men to stop in their tracks. She listened for about five seconds before she took off at a dead run into the forested area beside the building.  
  
Ian stayed the two Poles with a hand and followed Amanda. He found her cradling her husband's head and calling his real name as softly as she could, trying to rouse him.  
  
"He's alive," she whispered as Ian drew near enough to hear. "We've got to get help for him."  
  
"We'll have to trust Wroebel's men," he whispered back. "Is he hurt?"  
  
"I can't tell beyond that he's unconscious and has a lot of bruises."  
  
That, Ian decided, was an understatement. Lee Stetson had more black and blue marks than normal skin showing. With Amanda's help, he turned the injured man on his side, revealing the bullet wound in his back. "At least it isn't bleeding at the moment," he comforted the man's wife.  
  
"But it could start any time. Can you carry him?"  
  
Within minutes, the Americans and their Polish escorts were on their way back to Warsaw, knowing that every moment counted with Lee's life hanging in the balance.  
  
The Chancery, Warsaw, Poland * 3:15 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Jaruslav Milowanowicz sat in his room at the Chancery, alone behind the closed door. He leaned over his bed and reached under it to pull out the exquisite rifle case that held his custom-made weapon. In his mind, opening the case and cleaning the gun was as much a sacrament as celebrating the Eucharist or baptizing a baby, and he did so with complete concentration on every minute detail of the process. As he polished the barrel at the end, he imagined what it would be like after noon on Friday, when he would either be dead or free from all that bound him. He decided that if he lived to escape, his first action would be to find a woman to be with in the ways denied him by his vows.  
  
The Agency * 10:20 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
Dr. Smyth stabbed the ever-present cigarette holder in Billy Melrose's face as he worked into a rage. "You let my nephew – not to mention the two remaining senior field agents in this section – go with Reese on a wild goose chase for revenge against Leon Ivanich Scholk?!"  
  
Billy almost smiled, thinking that this was the first time he had ever seen Smyth too angry to rhyme. "No, Dr. Smyth, I distinctly remember you telling me that the only hope I had of getting Colonel Marlowe assigned here as Francine's partner was to graciously give him back to his proper command and to let Amanda and Francine go with them."  
  
Austin Smyth sat down heavily in the chair across from the section chief's desk. "I hate your memory."  
  
"I don't." It wasn't often that Billy – or anyone – got to sit on even terms with the leader of the Agency. "Besides, Amanda and Francine were in position to receive urgent communiqués from Stetson's network in Poland, and Amanda was able to find Lee and get him to qualified medical help before it was too late. So your plan served a purpose."  
  
"I suppose," the Penguin look-alike admitted, mollified. "Anything else on this threat?"  
  
"Nothing more specific, but it seems that there may be new connections being made as we speak that could shed light on some of the evidence, and perhaps provide more." Billy didn't have full details, but Francine had dropped a few hints along the way in their most recent conversation half an hour ago.  
  
"Keep me posted. I'd like to know when I no longer have to fear for the hair on my chinny chin chin." A ghost of his usual patronizing smile appeared. "Then we'll know the wolf won't be huffing and puffing to blow our house down."  
  
Central Army Command Hospital, Warsaw, Poland * 5:55 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
"You are a very lucky man, Herr Volkmeister," the Polish army doctor said to Lee Stetson through General Wroebel in German. "The bullet miraculously – if you believe in such things – passed through your back without so much as nicking the bowel or the intestines. You'll be sore and weak for a while, but we have you on antibiotics to help avoid infection. You'll be ready for transfer to a German facility on Friday morning."  
  
Lee thanked him in German and waited for the final instructions before bidding the doctor a good night. Amanda stepped out of the washroom and over to her husband's bedside as soon as she heard the door close. "I didn't understand more than every third word. Translation?" she demanded.  
  
Leszek explained it in his flawless English. "We'll have to work this very carefully," he added.  
  
"I'm not leaving Poland until this whole assassination thing is cleared up." Lee's determination showed in his voice, though his pale face belied his promise.  
  
"What assassination thing?" Wroebel asked.  
  
Amanda stared at Lee for a moment, then stood up and walked to the door. "I think you'd better come in here," she said out into the corridor, and a moment later, the Reeses, Ian, and Francine walked in.  
  
"Do I need this?" General Reese queried, pointing at his collar. At Amanda's nod, he pressed the button and the soft hum of the white noise generator filled the sub harmonics of the room.  
  
Over the next forty-five minutes, the American mole known as "Ludwig" learned the real names of his visitors and became an integral part of the team that hoped to save his country from a total meltdown. 


	8. How can we know the way?

DISCLAIMER: If you recognize people or organizations from the television series, they belong to Shoot the Moon Productions and Warner Brothers. I've borrowed them with love and deep appreciation for the many years of enjoyment I've received from them and am making absolutely no money from this enterprise. If you recognize them from history, no infringement is intended on them; they merely serve to provide the story with an authentic setting. If you don't recognize them from either of those two sources, they're products of my very odd imagination and I claim full responsibility for their imaginary actions.  
  
Chapter 8 * Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * 8:00 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Stefan's notes at each drop earlier in the day had specifically asked for the Scarecrow's wife to be the contact for an evening meeting. Only that request – and Lee's insistence that she go – brought Amanda to the front table of a little café, feeling exposed and vulnerable as she tried to look inconspicuous in the light crowd of a Wednesday evening. The Polish dissident had left no instructions for identification other than for her to sit at a specific table; he would initiate the encounter.  
  
"Amanda," Lee had said before she left the hospital, "Stefan will be pretty obvious. He has a nasty scar on his face and limps terribly." His description of Stefan didn't really settle Amanda's nerves, but she didn't bother to remind her injured husband that a scar could be hidden and a limp evened out reasonably easily. His final words just made her smile. "And he's a real player with the ladies, so be prepared."  
  
She was still musing when a voice above her interrupted her thoughts. "It really is a shame that the Scarecrow has already had his Dorothy."  
  
Startled, Amanda jumped. "Oh, hi," she covered, hoping that she didn't sound as flustered as she felt. "Please, have a seat."  
  
The man had neither a limp nor a noticeable scar, but as Amanda looked at the man across the table, she saw the evidence of an old, ill-healed injury along his jaw and into his shorn scalp. His smile was crooked, she noted, probably as a result of the marred tissue. But his eyes had a fire that she could understand, so she settled a little in her chair and waited for him to begin.  
  
"Your husband, as much as he tried, didn't do you justice," the man said after a moment of equally intense scrutiny toward her. "You are even more beautiful than the picture he painted in my mind."  
  
This was Stefan, no question. "Thank you. What do you need?"  
  
"Your husband," he said. "He's missing."  
  
Amanda sagged in relief. "We found him earlier today. He's alive but in the hospital."  
  
Now Stefan's relief showed in his face and posture. "Thank God. Has he told you anything?"  
  
"Everything," the American woman confirmed. "The rifle, the priest, the remnants of the network, Lee's visit to the Interior Ministry and to the Chancery, your role in getting us the microdot…"  
  
"So, what do we do now?"  
  
This was the delicate part. "Well, Stefan, there's another party in this who may have the other half of the picture. And there are at least two bad guys out there loose, one of whom we are sure knows Lee's identity and the other of whom we think knows."  
  
"A mixed bag." He sat across the table from Amanda in silence except to order a coffee for each of them. Finally, when his cup was drained and refilled the second time, he turned his focus back to his companion. "So, how do we tape this picture together?"  
  
Amanda smiled and reached out to grasp his hand. "Trust me like you would Scarecrow, and come with me."  
  
Stefan squeezed her hand. "If he trusts you, then I trust you. Lead on, Mrs. Scarecrow."  
  
Near the Kremlin, Moscow, USSR * 11:10 p.m. (GMT+3)  
  
G.A. Tolstoy paced the length of the hallway as he waited for Feodor Petrovich Kaminsky to open his flat door. The information he had to share was far too important to trust to the Moscow telephone system.  
  
The older man pulled the portal back and heaved Tolstoy in without ceremony. Kaminsky shuffled back to his immense dining room table, inviting his guest to follow with the wave of a clawed hand. He sat down and motioned Tolstoy to join him, pouring out four shots of vodka from a bottle the size of a magnum of champagne. "Did you want some?" he asked with a wry smile toward the active KGB agent.  
  
Tolstoy laughed and nodded. "Just two."  
  
"You didn't come just for the alcohol," Kaminsky observed when the two men had toasted their health. "You have urgent news?"  
  
"Disturbing news more than urgent. Leon Ivanich has been injured."  
  
"How badly?" Bushy eyebrows furrowed in concern.  
  
"He dislocated his left shoulder and tore some muscles in the process. He's resting now in a secret location. And Gregor Borodin is apparently persona non grata at the Interior Ministry. Another operative reported in that there is a full-scale alert out for him."  
  
"So he's a liability now. Have Scholk deal with him."  
  
"As you wish. There's more."  
  
"Do I really want to know?"  
  
"Probably not, but I'm going to tell you anyway. You already know that General Alexander Reese is in Poland with Leszek Wroebel. Now, we believe that he has at least two regular operatives with him – probably including Stetson's partner – as well as an auxiliary agent and another military man."  
  
Kaminsky rubbed his face with one gnarled hand. "Why now? And do we have any reason to think that they know anything new about our plans?"  
  
Tolstoy sighed. "Not at the moment, but I agree that the timing leaves something to be desired. Do you want me to pressure our friends to put another one of our men on the case rather than someone whose loyalty is less than solid?"  
  
"If you can. I want to know if they get any closer."  
  
Guest Officers' Quarters, Central Army Command, Warsaw, Poland * 9:30 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
The collection of people sitting in Amanda's room awed Stefan. He knew of Wroebel, who was something of a hero in Poland, but did not know he was a less-than-Communist. He knew none of the Americans other than Amanda, but he could sense that the men and women gathered were dedicated to the same ideals of freedom that motivated him to run the risk of death every day.  
  
"So, Stefan, you are a Polish patriot as well?" the general asked, inviting the civilian to join him on the settee at the window.  
  
"Yes, yes, sir, General Wroebel." He moved to sit with the other man, who was just slightly older.  
  
Alex Reese cleared his throat. "Okay, we need to lay all the cards out on the table and see just what puzzle we actually have. Leszek, you've gotten the update on your side, so why don't you go first?"  
  
With a tight smile, the mole began to explain the most recent events, including the fact that Scholk had been treated and released at the clinic in Izabelin. As he was leaving his office, word had come through that the alert on Gregor Borodin had been rescinded at the Prime Minister's order, and along with that news had come confirmation that the Good Friday service would be held at Castle Square. "We, however, are not providing any security assistance, which I find odd."  
  
"Perhaps not, General. Consider this: less security means more opportunity for trouble, and if the Russians want an excuse to clamp down, trouble on Good Friday would do that." Francine nodded toward Stefan. "We still don't know who's behind the assassination attempt, but don't you think that Friday would be the logical time to try?"  
  
Wroebel thought briefly. "Yes, it would. Especially since Glemp and Walesa will both be there. Probably Jaruzelski, too."  
  
Ian and Kevin exchanged looks before the general's son spoke. "It really doesn't matter who gets the bullet, if it goes down on Friday. Any of the three of them shot would be enough reason for a repeat of the Prague Spring."  
  
"We know who the shooter is, right? I mean, Lee was pretty convinced that our Olympic medallist is the man." Stefan waved his arms as he warmed to his theme. "Can we find a way to tell Cardinal Glemp so that he pulls Father Milowanowicz out of circulation?"  
  
"It doesn't work that way, unfortunately," Amanda counseled. "We aren't the KGB. We aren't even the CIA."  
  
Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * March 23, 1989 * 7:15 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Jaruslav Milowanowicz felt slightly guilty as he sat on a bench near the statue of Zygmunt III watching the early morning bustle of Warsaw's old town area. Mass at the Chancery would start in 15 minutes, and for the first time since he entered seminary almost 9 years ago, he wouldn't be there – or at any mass. It was a violation of his vows, but to his thinking, the vows were pretty much meaningless at this point, anyway. He was, after all, in the square to pick a sniper's nest so he could murder a man in cold blood – after which, if he succeeded, he planned to find a woman who would be willing to "haul his ashes" for the first time ever. Neither of those exactly fit within the bounds of his vows, either.  
  
The young priest had been privy to the final plans for the Service of Tenebrae and had, in fact, been the one to suggest the final placement of the platform that would soon be under construction along one side of the ancient market and gathering place. He knew the security plans – or as much of them as anyone at the Chancery did – and he could predict where the weaknesses in those plans would be. That made his site survey a little bit easier; he could eliminate areas in direct line of sight with guard posts and crowd control checkpoints, concentrating on spaces that would afford him good seclusion yet clear views of the staging.  
  
Jaruslav spent an hour wandering Castle Square before he found his nest. He envisioned the service, unfolding it in his mind to the point at which a curtain would be ripped in two – just as the curtain in the Temple ripped at the moment of Christ's death. The sound effect would cover the single shot he would need to end the life of the most menacing threat to Catholicism in Poland: Josef Cardinal Glemp.  
  
And, if luck and God were on his side, he'd have time for a second shot to eliminate another menace to his country. He just hadn't decided which menace.  
  
Council of State Office, Warsaw, Poland * 8:30 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Wojciech Jaruzelski listened without enthusiasm to the report of his delegation to the Round Table talks. Contrary to the wishes of his Soviet masters, Jaruzelski had found himself early on in the position of conceding to the Solidarity delegates far more often than he received concessions in return, and the results of the previous day's session were no different. Solidarity wanted a bicameral parliament – one which would have veto power and some teeth for making legislation; his Polish Worker's Union Party (PWUP) delegates were asking him now for permission to counter with a unicameral legislature holding advise and consent authority over an executive council headed by a hand-picked Prime Minister.  
  
The Soviet General Secretary had been very clear earlier in the morning: "Not too far, certainly not this fast. You need to slow this down." The architect of glastnost and perestroika also hedged his bets with, "Just keep the peace without giving away the store."  
  
Easier said than done, Mikhail, the Pole thought as his chief advisor driveled on about the merits of the counter proposal. "Run with it," he said a moment later, cutting off the conversation in the middle of someone's sentence. "And remind them that the talks end at 11:30 tomorrow morning because we are all expected at Castle Square at noon."  
  
The reaction was about what the Polish leader expected from a group of reasonably dedicated Communists – a long-suffering sigh with a barely disguised grimace of distaste. It mirrored his own feelings precisely, so he let the group go without reprimand. And if he was going to make them go, he knew he needed to let go of his inner machinations to avoid the Good Friday service, even if those machinations were far more interesting than anything that would cross his desk in the next 24 hours.  
  
Central Army Command Hospital, Warsaw, Poland * 9:10 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
The chief surgeon of the Polish Army shook his head in disgust at the gathering of Americans around his patient's bed. "You Americans are so impetuous," he declared in good but heavily accented English. "Herr Volkmeister needs at least another three days rest before he's released, yet you all support his decision to leave now."  
  
Alexander Reese smiled with sympathy, if not empathy. "Doctor, we appreciate your concern, but I know from personal experience that West German medical care is better than anything you can do here – and so do you."  
  
When the surgeon looked to Leszek Wroebel, the Polish general merely shrugged. "He's right, Jan."  
  
Acquiescing to the majority, the doctor sighed and signed the dismissal order with a scowl directed at his patient in the bed. "But you stay in the wheelchair until a German surgeon tells you otherwise, understood?"  
  
Lee Stetson grinned at the caregiver. "Nein."  
  
Francine translated in rapid fire German; when Lee nodded to the doctor, the man left with a final glare at each person in the room.  
  
"That wasn't what he said, Francine," Lee declared as he motioned for Amanda to help him get out of the bed and into the wheelchair to which he was consigned by the surgeon.  
  
"No literally," the blonde admitted with a leer, "but it got the point across."  
  
Amanda looked from her husband to her fellow agent. "Do I want to know?"  
  
"No," four voices said at once. Kevin Reese and Ian Marlowe smiled at her with red faces, while the two generals pointedly avoided eye contact.  
  
"Francine…" Amanda warned, her voice trailing off.  
  
"Never mind, honey. I'll tell you later."  
  
Reading the look on Lee's face, she got the point and blushed a little. But she was all business in the next moment. "Now that Lee is a free man, we should get moving on this. I'd say we have less than 30 hours at this point."  
  
Kevin seconded her thought from the one chair in the room. "Yeah, the traditional Tenebrae service is usually 3 hours, so figure it's all said and done by 3 tomorrow afternoon."  
  
"Refresh my memory," Wroebel demanded. "This is the reading of the seven last words of Christ?"  
  
"Primarily. Sometimes there's more – one chaplain we had for a while in Spain liked to rip a piece of fabric when he read the passage about the curtain tearing in two in the Temple." Kevin looked up at his father on the other side of the bed. "You don't suppose…"  
  
"We could probably ask," Alex followed his son's train of thought. "Lee, does Stefan have a reliable contact in the priesthood who might be able to ask some questions without arousing suspicion?"  
  
"It's better with the leg rest up, Amanda," Lee said before he turned his attention to the inquiry. "He might."  
  
"I can ask him when I see him later. What do we want to know?"  
  
Ten minutes of brainstorming left Amanda with a list of twelve questions for Stefan to pass to any contact he might have within the Church. Those questions prompted another twenty minutes of haggling about who would do what for the rest of the day before the group broke up.  
  
"So, my lovely bedside bluebell, where are we going first?" Lee asked his wife as the room emptied.  
  
"My room." Amanda stepped behind the wheelchair and started to push the apparatus out of the room and down the long corridor toward the main entrance to the hospital.  
  
"Really?" he asked hopefully, turning toward her with his best smile.  
  
The tall brunette returned the smile with a sway of her hips and a sly gleam in her eyes. "Really. And I don't have to leave for an hour and a half."  
  
Lee sat up a little straighter in his chariot. "Faster, faster."  
  
Amanda didn't stop laughing until five minutes later behind the closed door of her room, when laughing was the last thing on her mind.  
  
Near the Kremlin, Moscow, USSR * 12:20 p.m. (GMT+3)  
  
"Nastrovyia, Georg Alexeivich," the superannuated spymaster said, lifting his vodka glass in a toast. "We are doing very well."  
  
"Feodor Petrovich, don't get ahead of yourself. There is still much that could go wrong." Tolstoy's optimism had been fading since Saturday, when C.I. Scholk's operation to recover information from Sandra Reese failed. News of Scholk's capture of Lee Stetson briefly lifted his spirits, but the hope crashed even harder after his injury and Stetson's escape. More disturbing yet was the fact that Stetson was no where to be found; the Soviet lockout from the Polish military intelligence network did not bode well for finding the American before he left Poland, either – under his alias of Rainer Volkmeister or under his real name.  
  
"That is true," the older man conceded, setting his glass down. "But we've come farther than we believed possible – and you will be pleased to know that there are certain highly placed men in the Party who have given us their approval."  
  
Tolstoy's Buddha-like face cracked into a broad smile at that. "Really? Well, that is something to appreciate." The smile vanished as he realized that he now sat squarely under the Sword of Damocles instead of off to the side of it. "Unless we fail."  
  
"Then make sure we don't."  
  
Lunch, however decadently Western the spread, suddenly didn't seem as appetizing.  
  
Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * 10:35 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Jaruslav Milowanowicz sat back from the edge of his sniper's nest with a satisfied smile on his face. The nest sat on the balcony of a small apartment above a shoe repair shop; the proprietor of the shop – no owners in Communist Poland, the young priest thought with a derisive snort – had been thrilled to have his shop chosen as the location of an official photographer for the service. Jaruslav even had camera paraphernalia with him to complete his cover.  
  
Yes, the site was perfect. He had an unobstructed view of the square, and, more importantly, a clear sightline to the podium from which Josef Cardinal Glemp would preside over the service. He could, at the invitation of the proprietor, come and go as he pleased for the rest of the day and all day tomorrow – meaning he could further enhance his cover during the day. The internal excitement threatened to overcome his equilibrium, so he opted to leave his nest for a while, to stroll the square, have lunch, gather equipment after he met one last time with Gregor Borodin.  
  
Father Milowanowicz decided that it was a good day to collect his payment. Perhaps he would not wait until after the assassination to break the vow of chastity.  
  
St. Maria's Roman Catholic Church, Warsaw, Poland * 1:10 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Stefan paced in the small prayer garden within the church grounds as he waited for the parish priest to finish his counseling session with another communicant. As he walked, he pondered the series of questions for the priest Amanda Stetson had given him when they met for lunch. Who besides the Cardinal is going to be on the platform? What besides reading and music will take place during the service? What security arrangements have been made by the Chancery in addition to those made by the State? When the service is over, where is the Cardinal going? Will he be with Jaruzelski and Walesa at any time other than at the beginning of the service? The Polish dissident thought that the questions themselves might tip his friend off, but Amanda had given him permission to tell the priest the whole story as they knew it so he would understand the importance of the answers.  
  
"You look as though you bear the weight of the world on your shoulders, my friend," the parish priest said from behind Stefan as he entered the garden. "This must be why you need to see me."  
  
Stefan turned and greeted his pastor with a shrug. "You're very perceptive, although it may only be the crossbeam of the world's cross."  
  
"That's why I'm a priest rather than a state functionary," he returned. "And even the crossbeam is too heavy for one man, my friend. Remember Simon the Cyrene."  
  
Stefan frowned. "But he couldn't save Christ in the end."  
  
"No – but he was there to help ease the load along the way, and sometimes that's just as important. Now, tell me what's on your mind." He ushered Stefan to a bench and the two men sat down in the bright sunlit warmth of mid afternoon.  
  
Most of the story gushed from Stefan as though the priest had speared him in the side. The pastor of St. Maria's sat and listened without interruption for 25 minutes as the pieces fell into place and Amanda's questions were laid out before him.  
  
"I know the young Father Milowanowicz," the priest said after a long silence when Stefan was finished. "If there is a conspiracy to assassinate someone, he'd be a good candidate. He was extremely unhappy when the Cardinal began to show his willingness to accommodate the regime."  
  
"How unhappy?"  
  
"Unhappy enough to go looking for trouble, I think. He used to come over here for the underground university classes, but he stopped about two months before the edict came down to stop the program."  
  
Stefan nodded. "Well, that helps. Can you make the inquiries without causing too much of a stir?"  
  
"Leave it to me." The priest stood and extended his hand to his parishioner. "Where can I reach you after 9:30 tonight?"  
  
"At home, Father." He rose and shook the priest's hand. "Thank you."  
  
"You're welcome." He watched as Stefan turned and made his way toward the garden gate. "Stefan," he called, and waited until the man had turned back to face him. "You are doing a good thing. Trust God in this."  
  
Stefan grimaced. "I have no choice, Father." Lee, Amanda, and the others on the erstwhile team had not been part of the story he told his pastor. There were certain secrets better hid even from God's representatives on earth, if not exactly from God Himself.  
  
The Agency * 9:05 a.m. (GMT-5)/Central Army Command, Warsaw, Poland * 3:05 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
"Francine, slow down. You're not going to have to pay for the call out of your own pocket," Billy admonished his agent with a chuckle as he listened to the latest from Poland.  
  
"Sorry," she replied, a bit of relief creeping into her voice. "From the top. Lee has been discharged from the hospital – against medical advice, of course, but persuasively. General Reese has offered the Polish authorities his protection and a travel escort for Herr Rainer Volkmeister when he leaves, which mollified the surgeon just a little bit. We're working on a fairly solid theory of the assassination plot at this point, but we won't know anything more until after the masses tonight, so we're laying low."  
  
"What about General Reese's hunt for Scholk?"  
  
Francine hedged a little bit; Alex and Kevin were out together in Castle Square hoping rather in vain that Scholk would make an appearance so they could follow him. "He may have decided that it's more important to stop the assassination just at the moment."  
  
"Then don't tell him that Sandra is still deep in a coma."  
  
"He already knows, Billy. He's got someone there around the clock."  
  
Billy sighed. "A lovesick young man by the name of James Johnston who happens to be his adjutant. If she weren't clearly a potential witness in a federal case, someone would probably be blowing a very loud whistle about a general officer using staff for personal gain."  
  
"Probably."  
  
"Anything else?"  
  
Francine bit her lip to keep from telling her section chief about General Wroebel's identity as Ludwig. He wasn't in the "need to know" loop for that. Technically, neither was she, and neither were Ian, Lee, Amanda, nor Kevin. They just happened to be there at the revelation. "No. One of us will call in for the status meeting, but I don't know who."  
  
"Okay. Pass a message on to Colonel Marlowe, if you would, Francine. The promotion board results are due to be released at the end of the Washington business day tomorrow."  
  
"Before the weekend? That's either really nice for Easter and Passover or really lousy, depending on the results." She was hoping for really nice, of course.  
  
Billy laughed. "Too true. At the status meeting, then." He set the handset back into the phone and leaned back in his chair. The headache had been with him all week, but now, at least, it was roaring at a tolerable volume at the base of his neck. Jeannie was coming for lunch; he hoped she would have the time to massage the knot a bit before the afternoon began. He had the feeling it was going to be a long time before he got home again.  
  
Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * 3:20 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
"Dad, are you ready to go back to the base yet?" Kevin Reese asked, distracting his father from his intent survey of the people going about their business in the area.  
  
Alex Reese sighed and sipped at the cold coffee in his nearly empty cup. "I guess, Kev. I just wish we had a lead on that god-awful man." He waved away a waiter bearing a fresh pot of java and turned back to the crowd.  
  
"I know. But there's only so much we can do. And speaking of wishes, I wish we had a current picture of Milowanowicz. His official team picture is practically unusable."  
  
"Yeah. Let me see it again, anyway. You got Borodin's picture with you?"  
  
Kevin snorted. "It's the only recent and decent one we have. You bet I brought it." The young man reached into his knapsack and extracted a manila envelope, from which he pulled two photos. One was obviously the result of surveillance rather than a voluntary pose – Scholk was not known in any circles as a photogenic subject. Borodin's photo, on the other hand, was a very good official photo taken when he assumed his most recent post at the Interior Ministry. Wroebel's influence went a long way within the Polish government.  
  
The American general studied the pictures for a few minutes, then handed them back to his son. "Let's go." They paid for their coffee and pastries, then left the busy café and headed back across Castle Square toward the car and driver awaiting them.  
  
Kevin saw it first. "Dad, your two o'clock. Two men – Borodin and an unknown." His low voice only just came through the buzz of the horde of Poles on their way home early to prepare for the Holy Thursday observances.  
  
Alex glanced with studied casualness in the direction Kevin indicated. "It looks like Borodin is giving him something."  
  
"The 30 pieces of silver for Judas Iscarowicz?" Kevin's play on words earned him a sour smile from his father. "The other man is the right height and looks to be about the right general build, though much thinner than the Olympic picture."  
  
"I'd really like a picture of the statue, son." This the older man said at full voice.  
  
Kevin understood, and spent just long enough to set his father up in the foreground of a photo with Borodin and the other man in the middle distance to the right of Zygmunt III's stone memorial. Kevin continued to snap pictures of the meet as he maneuvered his father verbally toward another interesting backdrop, getting closer to Borodin and his associate.  
  
"Who do I follow, Dad?" he asked as the Interior Ministry functionary began to move away from the other man.  
  
"Borodin," Alex groused, resigned to the possibility that in doing so, they might lose the more important quarry. But in intelligence work, the rule was to go with what you know is a bad thing over what you think might possibly be a bad thing.  
  
His decision paid off. While Kevin followed Borodin on foot, Alex went to the car and had the driver follow as closely as he could behind his son. When Borodin got into an official Interior Ministry car, Alex restrained his exultation with difficulty: Scholk was in the backseat. "Driver, follow them," he said in Polish as Kevin slid into the backseat of Wroebel's personal Yugo.  
  
"Yes, sir," the driver replied, and with that, he took off in hot pursuit of the sedan as the lead car wound its way through Warsaw. 


	9. Let this cup pass

DISCLAIMER: If you recognize people or organizations from the television series, they belong to Shoot the Moon Productions and Warner Brothers. I've borrowed them with love and deep appreciation for the many years of enjoyment I've received from them and am making absolutely no money from this enterprise. If you recognize them from history, no infringement is intended on them; they merely serve to provide the story with an authentic setting. If you don't recognize them from either of those two sources, they're products of my very odd imagination and I claim full responsibility for their imaginary actions.  
  
Chapter 9 * Central Army Command, Warsaw, Poland * 3:50 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Leszek Wroebel snarled into the phone in a tone that left no doubt as to his opinion on whatever the subject at hand was. Without disconnecting that call, he picked up another handset and bawled a series of staccato orders into it before he went back to the original call and had a slightly more normal conversation. Amanda and Lee watched all of this from Wroebel's office, observing the communications center go in full alert status but not clear on the reason.  
  
"What gives?" Ian asked as he and Francine came into the small room bearing glasses of hot tea and a plate of cookies.  
  
"Don't know," Amanda murmured in a low voice, conscious that Lee was trying to pick up details from the conversation outside.  
  
After a few minutes, Lee shifted in his wheelchair to turn toward his three fellow Americans and filled them in on the situation. "Kevin and Alex are following Borodin and Scholk through a southern suburb of Warsaw."  
  
"Let's go," Francine said, draining the tea in her glass in one long swallow.  
  
"Francine, we're kind of stuck here until Ludwig tells us we can leave," Ian reminded her.  
  
The man in question stuck his head through the open doorway as though on cue. "You all want to have some fun? I've got a surveillance van with your names on it."  
  
Ian pushed Lee's wheelchair at warp speed behind the Polish general as the four upright and one sitting adults hurried down the hallway toward the back exit of the communications building. Wroebel drove the van, which barely had room for Lee's wheelchair and the passengers. Lee at least was mobile enough to get in and out of the van with some help – which led to a heated discussion as the group sped toward a rendezvous with the Reeses and two other surveillance units in the hunt.  
  
"I'm not staying in the van if there's a chance to catch these guys on foot," Lee declared.  
  
"What, you going to chase them down in your chariot of fire?" Francine rebutted, swatting his arm.  
  
Lee grinned. "Maybe."  
  
"There's a problem with that theory, dear," Amanda interjected with a frown at her husband. "You aren't really here, and you certainly aren't here with us."  
  
"No sweat," Wroebel contradicted. "Colonel Marlowe, check the bin over your head. You should find some interesting possibilities in there."  
  
Sure enough, Ian came up with a very good disguise for the non-existent Stetson; in ten minutes, Lee was transformed from a 30-something American into a 70-something Polish war veteran.  
  
Leszek Wroebel smiled at the image in the rearview mirror. "If anyone approaches you, just pretend that you received an injury to your vocal cords and we'll be good to go," he approved as the CB crackled to life under his hand. His short conversation with the driver of the Reeses' car was apparently good news, because a few minutes later he pulled over in an open field. "Everybody out," he called. "Alex and Kevin are chasing Borodin and Scholk on foot, and Scholk is starting to falter."  
  
Ian and Francine followed Wroebel into the bordering woods, while Amanda and Lee stayed near the van and tried to be a father and daughter rather than a husband and wife.  
  
In the Woods South of Warsaw, Poland * 4:15 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Gregor Borodin led the way as he helped the injured Carl Scholk through dense forest, straining to keep the voices of their pursuers in the distance. "I told you Castle Square was too open," he hissed to his companion when he stopped their progress for a moment to get his bearings. "I should have gone with my initial instincts."  
  
Scholk sneered at him, but it might have been as much pain as derision. "That would have worked just about as well."  
  
"At least no one would have seen us. Let's go." Borodin started off again toward the east, but Scholk pulled him back.  
  
"This way," he insisted, pointing west-northwest.  
  
"There's a road that way."  
  
"No, the road is to the east."  
  
"It's west of here."  
  
"I think you're wrong. I'm going west and you're coming with me." Scholk pulled a .38 caliber pistol out of his coat pocket.  
  
Gregor eyed the weapon with fear. "We're going west," he acquiesced, turning around and leading Scholk back the other way. It was a bad idea, but Borodin thought that the possibility of capture was the lesser of two bad ideas. Arguing with the business end of a gun was the height of folly.  
  
Western Forest Roadway, Outside Warsaw, Poland * 4:20 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
"Amanda, do you hear voices?" Lee wheeled his chair around toward the woods, forcing his wife to follow him away from the unmarked van.  
  
"I think so. I can't tell where they're coming from, though."  
  
"Get the gang back here with that spectacular whistle of yours, would you? I've got a feeling…"  
  
Before Amanda could get her lips puckered, Alex and Kevin Reese emerged from the western edge of the woods just at the shoulder of the road, dejected to find that their quarry was not already in custody. "Damn," Alex muttered to the spy couple under his breath. "We must have been following an animal instead of people."  
  
Amanda wiped the frown from her face as she took a breath to whistle. The piercing birdcall caused a flock of birds in the nearby trees to take flight with a resounding swish of beating wings. It also brought Francine, Ian, and General Wroebel running from the northwest just as Gregor Borodin stumbled out from the southeast with Carl Scholk just behind.  
  
Scholk reacted first, popping off a shot from his pistol toward the three people emerging opposite him across the field. Borodin threw himself to the ground, apparently afraid that Scholk would fire a bullet into him either by accident or design, which caused Scholk to stumble and fall hard against the last tree before the tall, browned grass of the open meadow.  
  
Francine and Ian moved faster than the others toward the wanted pair, but Scholk's second shot whined between the two Americans with frightening accuracy, considering he was still off balance at the roots of the tree. The couple ducked and continued forward, slowed a bit by their posture. Kevin Reese caught up with them as Scholk fired a third time.  
  
Ian fell with a muffled curse. When Francine dropped to her knees beside him, he waved her off. "Just get the bastard," he growled. "I'll make my way back."  
  
She hesitated for a moment, but seeing his determination, she pushed herself up to a crouch and crept off after the advancing young NSA man.  
  
Borodin, staying on his stomach, snaked his way unnoticed toward the road, trying to get as far across the field as he could under cover of the meadow grass. When he was safely past Kevin, he bolted upright and sprinted in the general direction of the trees on the other side. Amanda saw him; with incredible speed, she moved around in front of him and steered him back toward the road, where General Reese and Lee waited.  
  
Scholk, seeing Francine and Kevin coming at him from the front, took stock of his options as he gathered his strength. When he saw that the two Americans were committed to their course in his direction, he sprang up and took off to the left, away from the action near the van. His action was sudden enough that neither the man nor the woman could react right away; when he heard them turn around, he counted to five and feinted right, flew 50 meters, then feinted left again.  
  
Meanwhile, Amanda worked Borodin closer to her back up team step by step. When the Pole tried to get around her, she kicked at him with a vicious roundhouse that didn't connect solidly enough to drop him but did slow him down enough to stop his escape. Leszek Wroebel moved to cover the northern edge of the field as back at the van, Alex shuffled away from Lee to cover the front, leaving Lee to wheel his way closer to the open back end of the vehicle.  
  
Breathing hard, Scholk was still on his feet and moving closer to the edge of the woods where his pursuers had been searching for him. He was just past the center of the field, thinking he was home free, when Ian Marlowe reached up and body slammed him to the damp, cold earth.  
  
Ian called for help before Scholk could recover, and both Francine and Kevin came at a run. That didn't prevent the desperate Russian from trying to return the favor of the wrestling move as Kevin moved into position to control the man's feet. Ian managed to restrain Scholk's arms and with Kevin's help, sit the man up just in time for Francine to deliver a right cross that knocked the renegade unconscious.  
  
Amanda heard the scuffle behind her but ignored it as she continued to push Gregor Borodin into the trap set by the two generals and her husband. She and the American officer stalked the Interior Ministry operative, moving him toward the front of the van and the hulking Pole waiting there.  
  
Borodin skittered around like a trapped animal – which, in many ways, he was – as he searched for an escape. Not recognizing the man in the wheelchair as the Scarecrow, Gregor thought he saw an opportunity as the pincer closed around him. He darted to the right and slid under Alex's grasping arms, then dodged Wroebel's extended hands as he ran past the back of the van.  
  
Amanda gave one sharp whistle. Lee thrust the wheelchair forward with as much force as he could muster, just in front of the fleeing enemy agent. Borodin fell right over the outstretched leg rest, pulling the chair – and Lee – down on top of him.  
  
"Nice to meet you," Lee grinned with a fearsome leer. "Officially, that is."  
  
The last of Borodin's will drained out of him as he sagged under the weight of his burdens. "Stetson."  
  
"That's Scarecrow to you," Amanda replied, kneeling down beside her husband. "I think we should call you Wheel-Along Cassidy now."  
  
Lee laughed, and even Ian, whose thigh had a bullet hole through it, laughed with him.  
  
The Agency * 3:45 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
Billy Melrose had to wonder if the picture in his mind was anything close to what the actual scene would reveal if the whole capture of Borodin and Scholk were available on video. Lee, Amanda, and Francine were still laughing over the last little bit of their report as their section chief tried to clear his mind. "Okay, this will make really good reading when you get back. How's Ian?"  
  
"The doctor says he'll be fine – just a flesh wound that went cleanly through the only fat in his entire body," Francine replied.  
  
Billy smirked, even though the effect would be lost to his agent behind the Iron Curtain. "I won't ask how you know that. Anything new on the assassination?"  
  
"Not yet, Billy," Lee said. "I'm expecting an update within the hour. What should we do with our guests?"  
  
That posed an interesting question. Getting the two men out through the Embassy would be a major diplomatic crisis waiting to happen, but the only team in place to evacuate them illicitly didn't have the equipment or the resources on the ground to… "Have you talked with General Reese about this?"  
  
Amanda sighed. "No, sir. We didn't think it would be appropriate to without your approval."  
  
"Well, now you have it. And I'm sure that he has excellent reasons to want Scholk on American soil as quickly and quietly as possible. Let me know – check in within 2 hours so you catch the status conference."  
  
"Yes, sir," three voices chorused from Poland. The static of the trans- Atlantic call ended with the audible click of a broken connection, and Billy settled back in his chair. A long sigh escaped his lips as the headache went away for the first time in several days – even if only for a few minutes.  
  
Warsaw, Poland * 10:00 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
"Father, thank you for coming by," Stefan said as he allowed the rector of St. Maria's into his small apartment near the church.  
  
"Well, you're welcome, but I'm not sure I've got much for you." The man followed Stefan into the dining area, where a bottle of schnapps and two glasses sat waiting. "It's very interesting to me that none of the priests who were involved in the underground university system as rectors have been allowed to participate in this service."  
  
Stefan looked at the priest with surprise and poured out two large shots of the peppermint beverage. "They really did that?"  
  
"Oh, yes. I got nothing. Except…"  
  
"Yes?" the resistance leader prompted.  
  
"Jaruslav Milowanowicz is part of the planning commission and he's the designated photographer."  
  
Stefan threw back his drink before he answered. "So all we have to do tomorrow is look for a skinny priest with a camera in a crowd of thousands. That should be a piece of cake."  
  
The irony wasn't lost on the pastor. "Absolutely. Especially with your vast team of what, 3 or 4 aging dissidents with no training beyond the two years of mandatory military service?"  
  
"I'll have another," Stefan moaned, reaching for the bottle of schnapps.  
  
Central Army Command, Warsaw, Poland * 11:20 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
"No help," Lee groaned, hanging up the phone after his conversation with Stefan. "No help at all." He looked around the small conference room in hopes that someone would disagree with him.  
  
Amanda, ever the optimist, did just that. "Actually, we know more now than we did. We know to look for Milowanowicz posing as a photographer."  
  
"Just a little bit of help," her husband amended. "Meanwhile, we still have our guests to worry about."  
  
"Yes," General Wroebel nodded. "I can keep them until morning, but after that, we risk someone reporting to the Interior Ministry, and that's a can of worms we just don't want to open."  
  
Amanda, who found Wroebel's colloquial American English understated and charming, laughed as she stretched her legs out under the table. She looked across at the other general with furrowed forehead. "Do you have some kind of network we could tap into in East Germany that would get us a step closer to the West?"  
  
Alex Reese reached for the bottle of slivovitz as he shook his head. "I should be so lucky." He poured several shots and began passing them out to the assembled group. "Maybe the embassy can be of some help, even if we cannot take our guests to the embassy."  
  
"What do you mean, General?" Ian asked, accepting a shot glass from the ranking officer.  
  
"Well, we'll need a place to keep them on ice until after the service in Castle Square, but…"  
  
When he was finished outlining his plan, Francine whistled in appreciation. "This is either the second most foolhardy thing I've ever heard or the second most daring."  
  
"Second most?" Reese inquired with a skeptically raised eyebrow.  
  
"Lee and Amanda continue to hold first place ."  
  
"Stemwinder," the general murmured with a choked laugh.  
  
"I would have chosen the Nightcrawler case, myself," Lee said, adding nothing of value to the conversation.  
  
"Drink your alcohol, Stetson," Francine advised, taking her own suggestion.  
  
Before Lee could fight back, Amanda raised her glass. "To confusion for the enemy," she toasted.  
  
"Confusion," the group echoed.  
  
The American Embassy, Warsaw, Poland * March 24, 1989 * 8:20 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Kevin Reese was wondering just at the moment if the stress of Scholk's continued interference in his father's life hadn't sent the general around the bend and over the edge. The older man had put together a scheme that was just this side of Emerald City in terms of fanciful ideals and dragooned Kevin into playing the patsy – which at this point consisted of standing at the reception desk of the American Embassy waiting for the secretary to find the charge d'affairs to handle his peculiar question.  
  
After a few impatient minutes, the official came out with the secretary. "Mr. Reese, how nice to meet you. Please, come this way." He led Kevin back to a small conference room off the main hallway. "Have a seat. Can I get you some coffee?"  
  
"No, thank you. This shouldn't take too long, Mr….?"  
  
"Oh, sorry. Mr. Fonzarelli."  
  
"You must be joking," Kevin blurted before he could stop himself.  
  
"Unfortunately, no, I'm not, and before you ask, no, I don't go by 'the Fonz.' Now, what can I do for you?"  
  
Kevin smiled disingenuously. "What's the biggest thing you've ever shipped in a diplomatic pouch?"  
  
KGB Headquarters, Moscow, USSR * 10:35 a.m. (GMT+3)  
  
G.A. Tolstoy found himself on the receiving end of news that immediately started an ulcer brewing in his gut. "Missed how many check-ins?"  
  
Feodor Petrovich Kaminsky wandered into the small, smoky office while Tolstoy still had the phone pressed to his ear; the active agent waved his mentor into a chair as he listened to the person on the other end of the call. Kaminsky sat down and put his feet up on the ancient desk, contentedly misreading the expression on Tolstoy's face.  
  
He could not, however, misread what the man said when he slammed down the phone. "I'm guessing there's trouble."  
  
"What's the line from that decadent Western musical, 'trouble with a capital T'? We've got it. Borodin and Scholk both missed their evening and morning check-ins with the agent-in-place. Borodin has been cleared by the Interior Ministry – under pressure from us, of course – but did not appear at work yesterday or this morning. We still have no way inside the Central Army Command; our plant within the staff was transferred last week in the normal course of things but he had not been able to recruit a replacement, nor was his replacement from the field a potential for our operation."  
  
"But our shooter is still good, right?"  
  
"Is that all you care about?" Tolstoy exploded, rising from his chair.  
  
"Sit down," Kaminsky roared, waiting to see that the other man obeyed before he continued. "Yes, it is all I care about. If the priest can wreak havoc in Warsaw later today, then within seven days a full division of Soviet troops will occupy the country and we will be well on our way to regaining control of the Soviet empire."  
  
"The lives of these men mean nothing?" Tolstoy spoke through clenched teeth.  
  
"Of course their lives mean something. But they knew when they 'signed on the dotted line' that their lives were sacrifice for the cause – just as mine and yours are, potentially."  
  
The younger man sat back in his chair, the reminder that duty might take his life an ointment on his burning anger. "You're right, of course." He placed his hands on his desk as if in supplication. "So, what do we do?"  
  
"We wait."  
  
Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * 10:00 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Father Jaruslav Milowanowicz was a happy man as he made his way up the stairs into his sniper's nest with another load of photographic equipment. He was happy in part because he had put his 30 pieces of silver to good use the night before doing several things that were both immoral and illegal and because in this load he had his precious rifle. The gun was hidden in a case amongst the pieces of a Japanese-made tripod – but he couldn't hide his smile.  
  
The shoe shop proprietor took his smile to be one of contentment at the placement of the second floor apartment relative to the stage, and said so when the priest came back downstairs.  
  
"Yes, it is a great location," Milowanowicz nodded, allowing the man to believe his own explanation. "Would you like to have a souvenir picture taken on the stage before the service?"  
  
The shopkeeper stared happily for a few seconds before he replied with an enthusiastic, "Yes! I'll get my family ready."  
  
Jaruslav sauntered away, content to know that the shopkeeper would never get the picture that would never actually be recorded on film, even if the shutter opened and closed. He had something else entirely on his mind.  
  
Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * 11:20 a.m. (GMT+1)  
  
General Wroebel had been able to outfit the six Americans with portable transmitters from his special operations department, even though he had not been able to join their surveillance himself. He had also provided each person with a suitable disguise, not an easy task with a man on crutches and a man who was clearly still more comfortable in a wheelchair than walking.  
  
Ian, whose Marine Corps physique had given him a decided advantage with the ladies until Francine captured his heart, wore the athletic uniform of an East German national track team member. The explanation for his injury was simple – a torn ligament in his knee.  
  
Francine wore the woman's version of the same uniform, posing as Ian's teammate and fiancée. It wasn't a stretch in anyone's imagination, except that Lee commented that Francine wasn't bulked up enough to be a Communist athlete. Francine and Ian patrolled the section of the square farthest away from the stage.  
  
The father and son team of Alex and Kevin Reese wore simple laborers' clothes and wandered the middle section of the crowd, meandering separately but within line of sight of each other. They both spoke Polish well enough to pass as men from Gdansk, so they had the advantage of being able to truly mingle with the people.  
  
Leszek was particularly proud of Lee's outfit and the cover he had created for the husband and wife team. Lee sat in his wheelchair and wore an officer's tunic with the Afghanistan Service Ribbon and a Hero of the Worker's Party medal prominently displayed. For additional authenticity, Wroebel had added a scar across Lee's forehead and grayed his hair to make him more of a heroic figure. Amanda was dressed as Lee's personal attendant in the slim-fitting olive skirt and jacket of the Polish Army Nursing Corps. The uniforms gave the couple enough clout that they could move about the area directly in front of the stage without interference or suspicion; a crash course in the vernacular and Amanda's quick ear gave her just enough Polish to be politely discouraging to anyone who would ask too many questions of the hero in the chair. He was, she learned to say, suffering from the stress of saving the lives of his entire company.  
  
The three pairs circulated within their zones, speaking to each other over the open transmitters in short, simple Polish sentences for fear of being overheard speaking English. Castle Square filled as noon approached, making it more difficult for the teams to stay in sight of each other, and even, in the Reeses' case, of the other member of the pair. But try as they may, no one saw anything out of the ordinary in the crowd or in the buildings or trees surrounding the stage.  
  
A motorcade brought Josef Cardinal Glemp and Lech Walesa to the square at 11:55; the entourage of priests and deacons with them formed a processional opposite the stage. At the stoke of noon, Glemp's voice resounded from the crackling loudspeakers around the venue. "The betrayal of Jesus happened in this way…"  
  
KGB Headquarters, Moscow, USSR * 2:10 p.m. (GMT+3)  
  
"You seem to be in a better mood, comrade," Kaminsky noted to Tolstoy as the older man slid into a chair across the desk from the object of his observation.  
  
"I am, Feodor Petrovich. Look what we just got from one of our agents within the American Embassy." He passed a shiny roll of paper to his mentor.  
  
Kaminsky got out his reading glasses and unrolled the facsimile, shaking his head at the technology. "Well, well, well," he said dryly several seconds later. "If he isn't the spitting image of General Alexander Reese."  
  
"You noticed. And do you find it equally interesting that his question to the embassy had to do with the size of a package for the diplomatic pouch?"  
  
"Immensely more, as a matter of fact. How big?"  
  
Tolstoy checked his notes. "I quote: 'three boxes the size of standard American refrigerators.'"  
  
"Really?" Kaminsky pursed his lips. "I presume that Reese the younger is in Poland with his father, and that we got this from the embassy in Warsaw."  
  
"Yes and no, as a matter of fact. We got it from the embassy here. Apparently, the Americans in Poland had no clue what to do with packages of that size for the pouch, so they called the embassy here. Out man inside fielded the call and was able to get a surveillance photo of the inquirer."  
  
"Amazing how dense Americans can be. Do we know what flight these boxes are to be on?"  
  
Again, Tolstoy referred to his notes, revealing the information to his clandestine superior.  
  
"I think we need to inspect that plane before it leaves, don't you, Georg Alexeivich?"  
  
Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * 1:10 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Wojciech Jaruzelski arrived in his own motorcade just as the priests began to read about the actual crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Amanda thought the timing apt; Jaruzelski was certainly doing a lot of figurative crucifying these days as the Pontius Pilate of a morally and spiritually bankrupt system. The Polish leader was now on the platform with the cardinal and the leader of the Solidarity movement – three sitting ducks for any hunter willing to take the risk.  
  
She and Lee had thus far had no luck in their search for Milowanowicz, although Francine and Ian were pretty sure that they had seen him mingling with the throng during the opening procession. As she carefully pushed her injured husband through the milling worshippers, the two carried on a low- key conversation in Amanda's limited Polish and German. She felt the chair bump something or someone just as Lee said, "Look out!" in hissed English.  
  
"Oh, I'm terribly sorry," Amanda said in Polish to the man she had broadsided as Lee offered his own profuse apologies.  
  
"Not to wor – " the man started, then saw who he was talking to. "Lee, Amanda," he whispered, dropping his head down close to the pair.  
  
Lee glanced up and recognized the speaker. "Stefan!"  
  
"Shhhh," he advised. "Better that we not be seen together too much."  
  
"I agree. Are we set to pick up the network?"  
  
"Absolutely. I have the new codebook. I'll be in touch." He shook Lee's hand, nodded to Amanda, and left them in the crowd.  
  
Lee turned to Amanda as best he could in the confining chair. "You know, you christened this particular part of the mission Operation Lazarus. It looks like it was a success."  
  
She smiled in return. "Lazar zheet."  
  
Lee just laughed. "Indeed, Lazarus lives."  
  
The Agency * 8 10 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
Dr. Austin Smyth had his ever-present cigarette holder firmly clenched in his teeth as he listened to the latest from Billy about the doings in Poland. When the section chief finished, the head of the Agency took the cigarette holder out of his mouth and gesticulated with it as he talked. "They are cracked in the head if they think the diplomatic pouch thing is going to work," he said, though his tone was surprisingly approving. "But why three?"  
  
"That part I don't know, sir. I have the sense that the team knows more than they're telling me, maybe for legitimate reasons, maybe not."  
  
"With Alex Reese over there, who knows? Assuming they make the diplomatic flight, when are they due back?"  
  
Billy did some calculating in his head. "About 9:30 tonight at Dulles."  
  
"Make sure you have Colonel Marlowe's promotion paperwork when you meet them."  
  
"Are you sure he'll make the cut?"  
  
Smyth grinned. "Quite apart from the fact that he's earned the whole bird, there will be hell to pay for someone if you don't get your newest recruit and first full-fledged permanent military liaison."  
  
Billy chuckled. "As you say, sir."  
  
The Sniper's Nest, Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * 2:25 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Milowanowicz paced inside the tiny room, itchy to complete his mission and to know whether he would live to see another sunrise – or, for that matter, another sunset. The service, once one of his favorites because of the power and drama of the story, just seemed to drag by this time; he was waiting to hear the words, "It is finished," which would be his cue to settle on the balcony prior to the final reading.He looked at his watch and grimaced when he saw that he had another half hour to linger in limbo. Perhaps it was time to take a few more pictures to pass the time.  
  
Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * 2:43 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
"Lee, Amanda," Francine whispered into the microphone in the collar of her athletic jacket, an edge to her tone. "Ten o'clock from center stage, second floor." She still spoke in German  
  
A moment later, Lee replied. "Looks like a photographer, Francine."  
  
"Look closer," Ian interjected. "The man with the camera."  
  
Lee mimed the words to help Amanda get the meaning – which her gasp over the open connection verified. "Father Milowanowicz."  
  
Alex Reese joined the conversation. "I can see him clearly. He couldn't have found a better spot for a sniper's nest."  
  
"Why?" Lee asked as he and Amanda began to work their way through the crowd toward the building in which Milowanowicz had made his lair.  
  
"The angles. He could hit every person on that platform in the space of twenty seconds with a full magazine."  
  
"Dad, that's assuming he's going after more than one or two people. I'd think Glemp and either Walesa or Jaruzelski rather than the whole lot. More confusion."  
  
"Kevin, you scare me sometimes." He made eye contact with his son across an inlet of worshippers and the two men began to sidle their way to the would-be assassin's perch.  
  
Ian rolled his eyes as he tried to remember not to address the older Reese by his title. "Alex, you and Kevin will have to do the stairs in the building if you can get in."  
  
"Yeah, we figured. Any idea what building?"  
  
Amanda answered. "We're working on it."  
  
KGB Headquarters, Moscow, USSR * 4:46 p.m. (GMT+3)  
  
"Damn!" Tolstoy, not usually given to expletives unless followed by the words "Capitalist pigs", continued with a streak that would have made any sailor proud.  
  
"Bad news?" Kaminsky asked, steepling his fingers with a calmness he clearly didn't feel.  
  
"General Alexander Reese has been in Poland all week in conference with Leszek Wroebel with the permission of the General Secretary's office in Warsaw. His aide de camp is a U.S. Marine who was involved in the release of Sandra Reese from our hospitality three years ago. Kevin Reese, who it now seems works for an American intelligence agency, has been with him – as have two other people whose identities it now seems clear are covers and who very likely also work for an American intelligence agency."  
  
"Take a deep breath," the older man counseled. "So where are they now?"  
  
"Wroebel is in his office. The idiots don't know where the others are."  
  
"And?"  
  
"I think Wroebel will be in that third box in the diplomatic package."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"I think he's been more than an obstructionist. I think he's been the leak to American intelligence."  
  
Kaminsky thought for a second or two. "That explains a lot." He paused. "You have a team ready?"  
  
"Oh, yes. Ready, waiting, and willing to do whatever it takes to stop that plane."  
  
Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * 2:52 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
"Alex, the balcony is on the second floor above a shoe repair shop that faces Piwna Street," Amanda relayed as Lee had to speak with a couple of intrigued school children.  
  
"Piwna Street, got it. We're just coming past Zyggy now."  
  
"Zyggy?" Francine laughed. "Oh, the statue. We're about 20 yards in front of it on our way to find you, Amanda."  
  
"We're at the corner of the square and Piwna Street almost under the porch."  
  
Two minutes ticked by as the others found their way to Lee and Amanda. Kevin blanched as he listened to the priest at the podium on the platform. "That's the next to the last reading. He just said, 'It is finished.'"  
  
"We don't have much time, then. Let's go, Kev." Alex raised his hand briefly in farewell to the others and turned to make his way onto Piwna Street.  
  
Kevin took the time to kiss Amanda's and Francine's cheeks, then hurried after his father.  
  
"Well, I feel useless," Ian commented, leaning against the wall of the building to give his arms a rest from the crutches.  
  
"Hey, if I can take a guy down in this thing, think of the possibilities you have with arm extenders," Lee quipped, the tension plain on his handsome face.  
  
Ian brightened a little. "You're right."  
  
"And if Kevin and Alex can corner Milowanowicz…" Amanda let the idea hang.  
  
"Got it," Francine and Ian finished together. "We'll set up on this side," Ian continued.  
  
Lee chortled as he and Amanda prepared to move to the other side of the building. "You two sound more like a married couple every day."  
  
The Sniper's Nest, Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * 2:57 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Jaruslav saw Walesa turn to go back to his seat on the stage after his prayer. He knew there would be 90 seconds of silence before Cardinal Glemp stood up to read the final passage; he marked the time from his watch.  
  
The priest picked up his rifle, stroked it once for luck, settled himself in the regulation standing position in the doorway to the balcony so he would not be easily visible from the street. He sighted the podium, swung the barrel toward Glemp in his seat, and then back to the podium.  
  
He took a cleansing breath and checked his watch again. He began to count down from 30.  
  
Piwna Street, Warsaw, Poland * 2:58 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
"Shop's closed," Kevin groused. "As if there were any other option."  
  
"Well, you always did like to play Superman. Care to do it for real?"  
  
"Dad, that was years ago. I've got a better idea." The young man pulled a paper clip out of his pocket, unfolded it, and slipped it into the lock on the door. With a couple of twists, the door popped open. Grinning, Kevin ushered his father through the door.  
  
"Here's the stairs – there's an open door at the top. Let's go."  
  
"Right behind you."  
  
The Sniper's Nest, Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * 2:59 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Glemp stood, walked slowly to the podium. The rifle never wavered; Milowanowicz was pleased to see that when Glemp stopped, the rifle was sighted right in the center of his forehead. He gauged the slight breeze, dropped the muzzle two millimeters down and to the right to account for the natural interference. Then he waited.  
  
In the stairwell, Kevin and Alex crept as silently as they could toward what they had to assume was a small flat at the top. They heard the cardinal begin to speak.  
  
"From the Gospel of Luke…"  
  
Milowanowicz tightened and released his shoulder muscles one last time.  
  
"Chapter 23…"  
  
Alex and Kevin reached the top of the stairs. Alex motioned for his son to go around the room to the left as he went right.  
  
"Verses 44 through 49…"  
  
The renegade priest adjusted his aim as the wind changed.  
  
"'It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour...'"  
  
Kevin was halfway around the room when he stepped on a floorboard that squeaked. He froze, waiting for a reaction from the man in the open patio door. None came.  
  
"While the sun's light failed." Josef Cardinal Glemp held up a large piece of black fabric…  
  
Jaruslav took a deep breath and held it.  
  
"And the curtain of the temple was torn in two." The sound of ripping fabric reverberated through the square. 


	10. It is finished

DISCLAIMER: If you recognize people or organizations from the television series, they belong to Shoot the Moon Productions and Warner Brothers. I've borrowed them with love and deep appreciation for the many years of enjoyment I've received from them and am making absolutely no money from this enterprise. If you recognize them from history, no infringement is intended on them; they merely serve to provide the story with an authentic setting. If you don't recognize them from either of those two sources, they're products of my very odd imagination and I claim full responsibility for their imaginary actions.  
  
Chapter 10 * The Sniper's Nest, Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * 3:02 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Alex Reese leapt toward the priest.  
  
Kevin Reese stretched out his left arm toward the rifle.  
  
Jaruslav Milowanowicz fired.  
  
Kevin knocked the barrel of the weapon upward just as the projectile inside began its journey toward the man on the stage.  
  
The Pole roared in rage at the attack and swung the rifle hard at his assailants, flailing wildly but effectively enough to cause the two men to back off just enough.  
  
Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * 3:03 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Glemp, unfazed by the shot which hit the brick of the building behind the stage, went on with the reading in an apparent effort to contain the crowd. "Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, 'Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit!' And having said this, he breathed his last…."  
  
Lee and Amanda had seen a hand emerge from the doorway just as they saw the muzzle flash. They waited below the balcony for –  
  
"Here he comes!" Kevin Reese shouted in plain English into his microphone, the first words spoken by either Reese since they went into the building on Piwna Street.  
  
Jaruslav Milowanowicz came flying over the railing of the balcony, landing with force on his knees between the Stetsons and Ian and Francine on the other side. Amazingly, the crowd seemed focused on the stage and did not react to the presence of a deranged man in their midst.  
  
The priest shook off his unceremonious arrival on the ground and took off limping toward Piwna Street. Glemp continued his reading. "Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, and said, 'Surely, this man was innocent.'"  
  
Ian saw this; he motioned Francine ahead and waited for the shooter to get close enough for his "extended arms" to do some good. He saw Lee and Amanda following; Lee made eye contact and the men read each other's thoughts perfectly.  
  
Father Milowanowicz slipped between Francine and the building, right into Ian's outstretched crutch. Francine turned and knelt down on the man's back as the Stetsons slowed to a stop with the wheelchair.  
  
"Here, let's put him in here," Lee indicated, standing awkwardly with Amanda's support. "Hurry, Francine, the police have finally noticed."  
  
Glemp droned on as they worked. "And all the multitude who assembled to see the sight, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts."  
  
KGB Headquarters, Moscow, USSR * 5:05 p.m. (GMT+3)  
  
The color drained from Kaminsky's face as he listened to the Polish state radio broadcast of the service in Castle Square. Glemp was still speaking, even though the announcers had reported a single gunshot a moment ago. No one was rioting – the crowd, in fact, seemed utterly oblivious to the shot, absorbed rather in the drama of the Passion story.  
  
"He failed," Tolstoy said in a shaken tone.  
  
"Find him and kill him."  
  
"But we have – "  
  
"Find him and kill him."  
  
Georg Alexeivich nodded. "It shall be done."  
  
Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * 3:07 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
Alex called the interception team over the radio, urging the group to move around the corner into the relative protection of the shoe shop entryway. When the Stetsons, Ian, and Francine rounded the building, a battered Kevin greeted them with a raised hand and a scowl at the unconscious man in the wheelchair. In the crook of his other arm he held a rifle, looking for all the world like John Wayne in a John Ford Western.  
  
"What are we going to do with him now that we have him?" he asked, motioning toward the senseless priest with the gun.  
  
No one had thought quite that far ahead. "Put him in the box with Scholk?" Amanda suggested flippantly.  
  
Ian didn't think it flippant at all. "That might work. Who knows just how valuable he might be politically?"  
  
"How do we get him out of here?" Alex asked.  
  
"More importantly, what do we do with this?" Kevin rebutted, gesturing with the rifle.  
  
They were saved from further discussion when a van bearing the emblem of the United States Embassy pulled up beside them and Leszek Wroebel rolled down the driver's side window. "Need a lift?" he asked in an exaggerated New England accent.  
  
Lee smiled at the general. "How about the airport?"  
  
The Agency * 9:20 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
Billy sagged with relief when the translator finished his simultaneous interpretation of the intercept of the radio broadcast of the Good Friday service. He had never been so happy to hear verse 49 of Luke 23: "And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance and saw these things." He thanked the man and sent him out with a thumb's up gesture and a winning smile.  
  
"Well done, Melrose," Dr. Smyth congratulated him from the couch across the desk. "Your team seems to have averted an international crisis."  
  
"We would expect nothing less. I'm sure it was a piece of cake." His easy tone was a sham and both men knew it.  
  
"I'm sure," Smyth agreed in tones evocative of the Sahara Desert. "I have a question for you, William."  
  
Billy noted the shift in tone warily. "Okay."  
  
"Are you ready for a promotion?"  
  
The dark-skinned civil servant sat up straight in his desk chair. "What did you have in mind?"  
  
Smyth grinned and finally took the cigarette holder out of his mouth. "Retirement."  
  
It was all Billy could do to maintain a straight face. "How would it affect me?"  
  
The dapper Agency leader rose and came to Billy's desk, where he sat on the edge and tried his best to look congenial. "I want to recommend you as my replacement."  
  
"Really?" Billy Melrose almost choked on the word in surprise.  
  
"Melrose, the Soviet Union is imploding. When that happens, there will be people in the intelligence community who will say that the Cold War is over. I know that you will have the common sense to know better. This country is going to need you – you're the only straight shooter in the entire upper echelon of the intelligence world. And it doesn't hurt the cause that you'd look good as a presidential appointment."  
  
That, Billy knew, was an unspoken way of saying that adding an African American to the top leadership of any government bureaucracy, even one less public like the National Security Council on which the head of the Agency sat, would make the administration look good. "I'm flattered," he answered after a moment.  
  
"Don't be," Smyth cautioned with a broader smile. "You'll hate the job, but you're perfect for it. And, don't forget, it isn't yours yet." The head of the Agency gesticulated his departure with his cigarette holder and strolled out of Billy's office.  
  
"Head of the Agency," Billy allowed himself to muse for thirty seconds before he turned his focus to the next challenge of the day: getting his team safely out of Poland, something over which he wished he had far more control than he did.  
  
Warsaw International Airport * 3:55 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
"Just leave this to me," Wroebel cautioned his American passengers. Wroebel had worn a brown Western business suit with a crisp khaki shirt that was only the beginning of his disguise. As to the need for the subterfuge, "I am," he had said with some asperity, "a reasonable well- known figure, after all."  
  
Not anymore. His smooth, unwrinkled face made the beep brown wig less ridiculous than it might have been; caps over his naturally yellow, crooked teeth gave him a classic American smile. His English was so good that even Alex had a hard time remembering that the man wasn't a native Bostonian.  
  
When the guard at the tarmac gate stopped the van and asked for his identification, Wroebel produced a set of credentials that the FBI would have had a hard time proving false. "Diplomatic pouch delivery for the 4:25 KLM flight to Amsterdam." His Polish suddenly sounded thick and hesitant.  
  
"Any personnel traveling on the flight?"  
  
"Five Americans and a guest from West Germany returning to America." Wroebel turned to the men and women in the van. "Passports, please," in English.  
  
Three of the passports were authentic – two military and one bearing the authority of diplomatic immunity. Three were covers, including Lee's as West German Rainer Volkmeister. They held their collective breath as the border guard crosschecked his lists.  
  
"Thank you. Herr Volkmeister, I'm to apologize for your inconvenience earlier this week and to wish you a speedy recovery from your ordeal with the agitators."  
  
Wroebel translated and waited for Lee to give the man a reply, which he translated back.  
  
"Thank you. Gate 9," the guard indicated. Then the gate opened and the Polish general – soon to be a defector – drove the van onto the airport tarmac. A tangible whoosh of air moved through the van as everyone breathed again.  
  
"I can't believe he didn't even open the back of the van," Amanda whispered to Lee.  
  
"Protocol. Once we say it's for the pouch, it's sacrosanct."  
  
"Thank God."  
  
Gate 9, Warsaw International Airport * 4:05 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
The infantry captain really didn't understand the reason for his orders, but he supposed that somewhere up the chain of command, someone did, so he stood with his men at the cargo door of a KLM Boeing 737 searching every piece of luggage that came on board. When he saw the van from the American Embassy arrive, he called to his men. "We can't search anything or anyone coming off that van," he reminded them. "Diplomatic courtesy."  
  
The radio on his belt crackled. He put the unit to his mouth and acknowledged, then listened as someone much higher up countermanded the order he had just given. "But sir, that's illegal," he complained, wondering if this were a test.  
  
It wasn't. A voice spoke in clipped, Russian-accented Polish. "Search them, search the van, and search everything they want to put on that airplane. Or you'll be shot before you leave the airport."  
  
The captain looked around, now knowing that there were eyes watching him that he couldn't see. "Yes, sir." He called to his men. "Search them."  
  
The Polish troops advanced toward the van, guns at the ready. The captain motioned to the driver to get out, which he did with a shrug toward his passengers.  
  
"One at a time," the captain told his men, assigning several to watch the passengers as another group opened the back of the van.  
  
The platoon sergeant climbed inside the van and opened one of the three big boxes in the back. He pawed through the Styrofoam peanuts for several seconds before he felt something harder under his hand. He extracted three or four big handfuls of the packing material, revealing the top of a human head. "Defector!" he screamed at the top of his voice.  
  
Chaos ensued. The 4-man KLM cargo crew proved to be something else as they pulled out .44 caliber Smith and Wesson pistols and began to fire selectively into the troop of infantry, dropping soldiers with each shot but careful to avoid fatal shots if possible. The army men reacted, but not quickly enough; within seventy five seconds the only man left standing was the captain himself, who held the driver in front of him as a shield as he made his way around the van.  
  
Wroebel made eye contact with one of the cargo loaders, a tall, gaunt man with a nasty scar on his face. Then the general bent double in the captain's grasp.  
  
The cargo loader fired, hitting the captain between the eyes. Wroebel shuddered but shook off his revulsion as he called for the others to join him and ran for the plane.  
  
"Nice timing," the scarred man said to the general.  
  
"Thanks, Stefan," Wroebel returned. "Get the boxes. We don't have much time."  
  
"Right."  
  
The Polish general showed his American friends where they could board the plane for the passenger cabin. Alex Reese stayed back for a moment as he watched his son, the two injured men, and the women who loved them go up the jet way stairs.  
  
"Are you sure about this?" Alex asked his long-time friend and agent.  
  
"I have to, Alex. I have to stand and face the music so you can get out with the three in the boxes."  
  
"But…"  
  
"I have to. Go – I hear sirens." The Pole took the American in a bear hug and slapped him on the back soundly. "Nail Scholk good." He turned and walked away, never looking back.  
  
General Reese boarded the plane with a heavy heart.  
  
ICU, Johns Hopkins University Medical Center, Baltimore, Maryland * 10:20 a.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"Water," the pale figure in the bed croaked, almost inaudibly. "Need water."  
  
James Johnston knelt beside the bed and reached for the young woman's hands, ignoring the tears streaming down his face. "Sandra," he whispered.  
  
She smiled, a weak grin that faded with alacrity as though the muscles couldn't hold the strange shape. "James."  
  
Warsaw International Airport, Warsaw, Poland * 4:25 p.m. (GMT+1)  
  
"We're in trouble," Lee commented, looking out the window to the ground below. "Wroebel never made it onto the plane."  
  
Alex Reese, sitting on the aisle with Amanda between him and Lee, leaned over to speak in a low voice. "He's sacrificing himself so we can get Scholk, Borodin, and Milowanowicz out of the country."  
  
Amanda sucked in a breath. "A true hero," she said, not surprised but saddened.  
  
*****  
  
Wroebel waited with Stefan at the bottom of the cargo ramp. "Thank you for continuing the struggle for true freedom," he said to the dissident.  
  
"You're welcome." The first of the Interior Ministry vehicles came into view at the far end of an unused runway. "General, if you don't mind me saying so, you'd be a bigger help to the cause if you were still alive."  
  
"Oh, I know. I have a plan."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Now would be a good time to implement it," Stefan urged.  
  
"I think you're right." Wroebel removed the wig and the teeth caps, as well as the suit coat, revealing his military shirt underneath. "When they come, you and I are going to assume command of the operation and board the plane through the passenger cabin. Well, I am – you're going to make your escape through the terminal."  
  
Stefan looked at the general with a crooked smile. "You just didn't want to go in the box, did you?"  
  
"Not when there's food service in the cabin!"  
  
The Interior Ministry troops, taken aback by the presence of a ranking Army officer, did just as Wroebel predicted and let him handle the boarding with his own man. The two men shook hands one last time before they parted, then they each went on to fight the battle against Communism in his own way.  
  
A flight attendant stopped Wroebel at the cabin door. "You can't come on board, sir. We've been given clearance to depart," she admonished in her lilting Dutch accented English.  
  
"Then my timing is impeccable. I'm defecting to the custody of General Alexander Reese of the United States Army."  
  
The woman blinked; a strong male voice behind her startled her into action. "Let him on, Miep. We are, after all, carrying the diplomatic pouch of the American Embassy."  
  
"Yes, Captain," she replied, leading Wroebel into the aircraft and showing him an empty seat – next to Ian Marlowe, of all people.  
  
"Figures," the colonel growled to Francine. "No such thing as an empty seat…"  
  
The expression on Francine's face made him look at his new seatmate. "General Wroebel?"  
  
"In the flesh. Better tighten those seatbelts. It may get bumpy." He smiled as he felt the plane push back from the gate.  
  
*****  
  
"Yes, sir!" The Interior Ministry major, following the command from nosebleed levels, ordered his troops to get back into their trucks and speed after the departing jet. They chased it across the taxiway as Air Traffic Control tried in vain to get the pilot to turn the plane around.  
  
The aircraft reached the end of the runway and began to rev up for departure; the major sent three of his largest trucks across to block the intersections in hopes of forcing the pilot to abort the takeoff or to risk a catastrophe.  
  
*****  
  
"I see what you're doing, you bastard," the pilot uttered through clenched teeth. "Attention passengers, this is the captain," he said in as normal a voice as he could muster over the PA system. "There is some debris on the runway that we will have to avoid as we roll down toward lift off. Don't be alarmed and cross your fingers that we miss it all, or the landing in Amsterdam will be just a bit on the hairy side."  
  
He released the brakes and the big jet rumbled toward the first truck in a game of chicken writ large.  
  
The driver of the truck blinked first and burned rubber as he moved his vehicle out of the path of the Boeing workhorse.  
  
The driver of the second truck had miscalculated his position by about two meters. The plane sped past without deviating a centimeter from its course, earning the pilot an unheard curse from the driver and his commander.  
  
The third truck was perfectly placed. Its crew had learned from observation and scrambled away.  
  
The pilot muttered a curse of his own as the army vehicle loomed large in his windshield. He and the co-pilot watched the speedometer as it crept toward minimum takeoff speed, not quickly enough.  
  
With 25 meters and 5 knots an hour to go, the pilot threw caution aside and pulled back on the yoke. The front wheel came up, clearing the top of the truck by maybe 10 centimeters. The back of the plane stayed on the ground for a second too long, finally lifting clear but taking the top of the truck with it as the underside of the tail snagged the hard metal shell of the army vehicle.  
  
"Any damage?" the pilot asked the co-pilot after a deep, shaking breath.  
  
"No lights. We might want to ask for a visual before we land."  
  
"Great idea." The two men laughed as the co-pilot took the controls and turned the plane toward the free world.  
  
International Arrivals Terminal, Dulles International Airport * 9:35 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
Billy greeted his agents, General Reese, Kevin, and the man with them with several pieces of good news. "Sandra is awake and starting to remember what happened, which will help us build a case against Scholk. Dr. Smyth announced his retirement today and has formally recommended me for the job. Ian, you are now officially Colonel Ian Marlowe rather than Lieutenant Colonel, and your new assignment as of April 10 is as military liaison officer to the Agency. Oh, and the Red Sox beat the Yankees in both games of a spring-training double header."  
  
General Reese did a victory dance as the group moved past customs to the cars Billy had waiting. The Reeses and the man the general never introduced got into the one with a driver while he led his agents – all four of them – to the other sedan. Billy got in the driver's seat while Francine and Ian got in the front with him and Amanda and Lee got in the backseat.  
  
Unable to contain his curiosity, Billy finally asked the question they had all been waiting for. "So, who was that man with General Reese?"  
  
"An old family friend we happened to meet in Amsterdam," Amanda replied for the others.  
  
"Right," Billy nodded, not believing it.  
  
"Really, he is. An old family friend," Ian added. "He is, in fact, Sandra's godfather."  
  
"Oh." Then perhaps it was true, just a simple coincidence in a very complicated operation. "The packages will be taken to a safe house for interrogation, by the way."  
  
He got no answer; all four of the dedicated agents with him were sound asleep. 


	11. Love one another

DISCLAIMER: If you recognize people or organizations from the television series, they belong to Shoot the Moon Productions and Warner Brothers. I've borrowed them with love and deep appreciation for the many years of enjoyment I've received from them and am making absolutely no money from this enterprise. If you recognize them from history, no infringement is intended on them; they merely serve to provide the story with an authentic setting. If you don't recognize them from either of those two sources, they're products of my very odd imagination and I claim full responsibility for their imaginary actions.  
  
Tag * Maplewood Drive, Arlington, Virginia * March 25, 1989 * 5:30 p.m. EST (GMT-5)  
  
"Amanda, honey, are you home? Where's Lee? Is he still away?" Dotty West's voice rolled through the Stetson-King home as a wave crashing on the shore. Joe and the boys pulled into the driveway just behind her car; she hugged her grandsons with affection and told them to stack their suitcases inside the back door beside her own.  
  
"Is Mom home, Grandma?" Jamie inquired, pulling his winter hat off as he waved good-bye to his father.  
  
"I don't know. Amanda! Are you home?" she repeated, more loudly.  
  
In their bedroom, Amanda and Lee lay on the bed, fully clothed but entwined in each other's arms. "I suppose we'd better admit to being here before one of the boys bursts through the door searching for us," Amanda said reluctantly as Lee traced her face with a gentle finger.  
  
"Yeah. So, are we agreed?"  
  
"Yes, I think so."  
  
"Should we tell them?"  
  
"Sure. I think they'll be thrilled."  
  
"I hope so. I am." Lee kissed his wife deeply, then sat up and stood stiffly, his back still sore from the gunshot. At least both he and Ian had been given clean bills of health and orders to rest for a few days.  
  
The couple went downstairs and went through the ritual of welcoming everyone back from their various vacations or business trips. They ordered pizza; when it arrived, the family sat down and gave thanks for their safe returns. And then Lee sought quiet to make an announcement.  
  
"Your mother and I," he began, clearing his throat to cover his nervousness. "Your mother and I have made a decision."  
  
"Are you going to have a baby?" Philip asked a beat before Dotty could.  
  
Amanda smiled at her son, then at her husband, encouraging him to continue.  
  
Lee did. "Well, not precisely. We've thought a long time about the risks of your mom having a baby at her age, and even though it's getting safer, we don't think it's safe enough to risk her health or the health of a baby. So we've decided, if we have your blessing, that we'd like to adopt a child."  
  
The silence lasted for only a brief interval before Dotty, Philip, and Jamie were all bubbling over with excited ideas about preparing for a new member of the family.  
  
Ignoring the noise of the conversation, Lee looked at Amanda and whispered, "I love you."  
  
Amanda reached for his hand and squeezed it. "And I love you. Dad."  
  
Fine 


End file.
